Question 82269
One very important feature of function notation is that it allows you to immediately identify the independent variable in an equation.
For example, let's say that you have this quadratic equation:
{{{y = 6x^2 + 8x + 10}}} in which y is the dependent variable and x is the independent variable, and you write it using function notation:
{{{f(x) = 6x^2 + 8x + 10}}}
You can see right away that x is the independent variable because the x appears in the f(x).  f(x) is read as "function of x" and not as "f times x"