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In mathematics, the term linear is used in two distinct senses for two different properties: . linearity of a function (or mapping);; linearity of a polynomial.; An example of a linear function is the function defined by () = (,) that maps the real line to a line in the Euclidean plane R 2 that passes through the origin.
In mathematics, the term linear function refers to two distinct but related notions: [1] In calculus and related areas, a linear function is a function whose graph is a straight line, that is, a polynomial function of degree zero or one. [2] For distinguishing such a linear function from the other concept, the term affine function is often used ...
In calculus, the derivative of any linear combination of functions equals the same linear combination of the derivatives of the functions; [1] this property is known as linearity of differentiation, the rule of linearity, [2] or the superposition rule for differentiation. [3]
Conversely, every line is the set of all solutions of a linear equation. The phrase "linear equation" takes its origin in this correspondence between lines and equations: a linear equation in two variables is an equation whose solutions form a line. If b ≠ 0, the line is the graph of the function of x that
Thus in differential geometry, a line may be interpreted as a geodesic (shortest path between points), while in some projective geometries, a line is a 2-dimensional vector space (all linear combinations of two independent vectors). This flexibility also extends beyond mathematics and, for example, permits physicists to think of the path of a ...
In mathematics, and more specifically in linear algebra, a linear map (also called a linear mapping, linear transformation, vector space homomorphism, or in some contexts linear function) is a mapping between two vector spaces that preserves the operations of vector addition and scalar multiplication.
A linear function is a polynomial function in which the variable x has degree at most one: [2] = +. Such a function is called linear because its graph, the set of all points (, ()) in the Cartesian plane, is a line. The coefficient a is called the slope of the function and of the line (see below).
In mathematics, a linear differential equation is a differential equation that is defined by a linear polynomial in the unknown function and its derivatives, that is an equation of the form + ′ + ″ + () = where a 0 (x), ..., a n (x) and b(x) are arbitrary differentiable functions that do not need to be linear, and y′, ..., y (n) are the successive derivatives of an unknown function y of ...