Example 2: Find a formula for an inverse to f(x)=2x2+5.
Solution: In this case, f does not pass the horizontal line test, so it does not have an inverse defined on the whole domain. Let's restrict the domain to [0,∞), for example. The range of f is [5,∞).
To find a formula for f−1(x), we write:
y=f−1(x)x=f(y)x=2y2+5y2=(x−5)/2.
To find y we need to take a square root. But which square root do we
want? Since the range of f−1 is the domain of f, our answer
must be in [0,∞), so we want f−1(x)=y=+√(x−5)/2. This makes sense whenever x≥5. The domain of
f−1 is [5,∞), which is the range of f.
|