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| Question 126702:  Hey again..
 I'm working on the section inverse relations and functions and have a question.  Heres the problem.
 Find the inverse of the function y=4x-7.  Is the inverse a function?
 I found the inverse... its y=x+7/4    I just dont know if its a function or not?
 Thank you for helping
 Found 2 solutions by  stanbon, bucky:
 Answer by stanbon(75887)
      (Show Source): 
You can put this solution on YOUR website! Find the inverse of the function y=4x-7.  Is the inverse a function? I found the inverse... its y=(x+7)/4    I just dont know if its a function or not?
 ------------
 Your inverse equation can be written in the form y = (1/4)x +(7/4),
 which is the form of a line.  It is a function because for any value
 you would give "x", there would be only one "y" value.
 ====================
 Cheers,
 Stan H.
 
Answer by bucky(2189)
      (Show Source): 
You can put this solution on YOUR website! Check your answer again. .
 You are given the function:
 .
 y = 4x - 7
 .
 To find the inverse of this, replace y with x and x with y to get:
 .
 x = 4y - 7
 .
 Solve this for y. Begin by transposing the equation (just swapping sides to get the term
 containing y on the left side). After transposing, the equation is:
 .
 4y - 7 = x
 .
 Get rid of the -7 on the left side by adding 7 to both sides to get:
 .
 4y = x + 7
 .
 Then solve for y by dividing both sides of this equation by 4 to get:
 .
 y = (1/4)x + 7/4
 .
 This is the inverse of the function y = 4x - 7.
 .
 That may have been the answer you got. If so you should have written it as:
 .
 y = (x + 7)/4
 .
 so that it was clear that both terms, the x and the 7, were to be divided by 4. According to
 the rules of algebra, the way you wrote the answer, only the 7 was divided by 4 and x was then
 added to the result of that division so that the answer was x + (7/4).
 .
 Now, how do you tell whether or not that the inverse is a function? Look at the answer:
 .
 y = (1/4)x + (7/4)
 .
 This is in the form of a slope intercept equation ... the slope is (1/4) and the y-intercept
 is at +7/4 on the y-axis. The graph is a straight line. ... And the graph looks like this:
 .
 
  .
 One way to tell if this is a function is if you can draw a vertical line anywhere on
 the graph and it only intersects the graphed line at a maximum of one point, the graphed line
 represents a function.  On the graph shown above, anywhere you draw a vertical line it will cross the
 graphed line only at one point, so you have a function. If somewhere on the graph a
 vertical line could cross the graphed line at more than one point, then the graph would
 not represent a function.
 .
 So the answer to your problem is yes ... the inverse is a function.
 .
 Hope this helps you to understand one way of determining whether an expression represents
 a function.
 .
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