What is a Linear Function?
The cost of training defense people for certain task increases with respect to the number of people as shown in the following
table.
| no. of people | cost (in $1,000) |
| 10 | 15 |
| 20 | 25 |
| 30 | 35 |
| 40 | 45 |
| 50 | 55 |
Did you notice that the relationship between the cost and the no.of people is a linear one?
In fact, the relationship can be represented by the following
linear equation.
cost = 5 + no. of people
Assigning a letter to the function name, we can say that C(n) is the cost of training "n" people,
and the equation is
C(n) = 5 + n
Graphing interactive workbench
In general, a linear function is a function defined by an equation of the form
f(x) = y= mx+b
and the graph of a linear equation is a straight line. In the above equation, "m" is called the slope
of the line and "b" is called the intercept on y-axis.