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Question 35544: I am doing a project on Step Functions. It has been very difficult to find information about step functions and what they're used for. If possible I was wondering if you could tell me some ways step functions are used in everyday life. (Things like careers, jobs, projects, etc.) This would help me tremendously.
Thanks---
Found 2 solutions by rapaljer, Nate:
Answer by rapaljer(4671)   (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! Step Functions are intimidating, but as most topics in math, they are much easier than they look. There are a LOT of examples in business and life that you may never have thought of. The first one that comes to mind is postage stamps!! The cost is so much for the first ounce (what is it now, 39 cents?). Anything up to and including 1 ounce costs 39 cents. If it is even a little bit more than one ounce, they you have to add postage for the second ounce. Anything up to and including the second ounce costs the same price. If it goes OVER the second ounce, then you pay for the third ounce. This is a Step Function.
If you are paid by the hour for your job, you probably clock in for either whole hours or maybe half hours or quarter hours, right? You are probably NOT paid for an extra 3 or 5 minutes, and hopefully you are not deducted if you stop working 3 minutes early. In other words, your pay is probably NOT computed on a continuous (minute by minute) basis, but rather on an hourly basis for each hour (or perhaps half or quarter hour) that you work.
In teaching, salaries are often computed by degree earned AND by number of years of experience up to a certain maximum years. In this sense, a teacher's salary is a Step Function, since the number of years of experience must be a whole number of years. A teacher may have 2 years of experience, or maybe 3 years of experience, etc., but if he/she has 2 1/2 years of experience, they drop the half year as far as the salary scale goes.
In all of these and other similar measures, you can write a formula for the cost of postage or teacher salary based upon the weight of the letter or the number of years of experience of the teacher, but the number of ounces or number of years of experience is rounded up (or down) to the nearest whole number. This is what we mean by a Step Function.
You can probably think of others illustrations from your own life that might be even better than these.
R^2 at SCC
Answer by Nate(3500)  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! One way step functions are used is that they're used for telling you how many buses were need for 120 kids if the bus capacity was 30.
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