Functions

Linear functions

Relationship between feet and yards.

Linear functions are used to graph things that have a constant rate of change. There are always 3 feet in 1 yard. The equation would be y=3x.

Exponential functions

Bacterial growth.

An exponential function is a function whose value is a constant raised to the power of the argument. If one bacterium divides once everyday then the equation would be y=x^however many days you want.

Absolute value

Force of gravity in comparison to distance from center of the Earth. Absolute value is the magnitude of something without regard to its sign. In this experiment you can't be a negative distance from the earth so all y values would be positive making the graph the characteristic 'V' shape.

I got a lot of my info from mathforum.org