In my textbook there is a question like below:
If $$f:x \mapsto 2x-3,$$ then $$f^{-1}(7) = $$
As a multiple choice question, it allows for the answers:
A. $11$
B. $5$
C. $\frac{1}{11}$
D. $9$
If what I think is correct and I read the equation as:
$$f(x)=2x-3$$
then,
$$y=2x-3$$
$$x=2y-3$$
$$x+3=2y$$
$$\frac {x+3} {2} = y$$
therefore:
$$f^{-1}(7)=\frac {7+3}{2}$$
$$=5$$
Best Answer
This is to just to elaborate on why someone would use the notation $$f: x \mapsto 2x-3$$ When we treat a function $f$ as an object, i.e. do more with it than just evaluate it at points, then we need to be able to distinguish between the object, the function $f$, and its rule of assignment determining its values at points $x$, i.e. after evaluating at points $x$.
Since $f(x)$ denotes both the function $f$, as an object in its own right, as well as the value of that function evaluated at a point $x$, it is too ambiguous for such purposes, because it does not allow us to distinguish between the function and its rule of assignment.
Often we can identify the function $f$, as an object in its own right, with its rule of assignment taking $x$ to $f(x)$, since we are in such instances only considering the latter, so no ambiguity arises.
However, the notation $$f:x\mapsto 2x-3$$ is nice because it both presents the function $f$ as a distinct object while also specifying its rule of assignment. The colon : is meant to be read "such that", which implies that the expression $f:x\mapsto 2x-3$ reads "the function $f$ such that $x$ is mapped to $2x-3$".
The benefit of this notation is that it allows us to distinguish between the function $f$ and its rule of assignment when we need to distinguish between the two, while taking exactly as long to write as $f(x)=2x-3$, when we don't need to distinguish between the function and its rule of assignment, and thus economy of notation becomes a priority.
Thus, the notation $f:x\mapsto2x-3$ is both exactly as efficient as the classical notation $f(x)=2x-3$ and less ambiguous.