[Math] Would this be an acceptable answer for the inverse of floor function

discrete mathematicselementary-set-theoryfunctions

This problem is from Discrete Mathematics and its Applications

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And the book's definition on inverse

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Would an acceptable answer to 43b just be the set itself again? What I like to think of the inverse is what input did you pass to get this output. One can pass {-1, 0, 1} into the floor function to get {-1, 0, 1}. Is this the right way to think about this problem? Or is it better to introduce 3 separate variables, say x, y, and z and show the interval of values that can be passed into the floor function to get this set.

Best Answer

There is an overloading here, of the symbol $f^{-1}$.

If $R$ is a binary relation, then $R^{-1}=\{(a,b)\mid (b,a)\in R\}$, and when $f$ is an injective function we can show that $f^{-1}$ is an injective function as well (here a function is just a set of ordered pairs with a particular property). In the case we call $f^{-1}$ the inverse function.

But if $f$ is not an injective function then $f^{-1}$ is not a function, it is a binary relation. In that case we use $f^{-1}$ to denote the preimage function, which is a function mapping subsets of the range (or codomain) to subsets of the domain. Namely, $f^{-1}(A)=\{x\in X\mid f(x)\in A\}$.

Note, that if $f$ is indeed injective, then for every singleton, $\{b\}$ its preimage is at most a $\{a\}$ for some $a$ in the domain.

You are asked to find the preimage, which is the set of all values being mapped into the given set. So writing $g^{-1}(\{-1,0,1\})=\{-1,0,1\}$ is blatantly wrong, since there are many numbers being mapped to those three values, not just the three.