Question

What is your favorite function?

Answer 1

The function that maps rationals to 1 and irrationals to 0

Answer 2

∅:∅→∅

Answer 3

I found myself pretty fascinated by the gamma function a few months ago... there's something about the extension of factorials to the negative domain that is deeply pleasing to me

Answer 4

The determinant (det: M_n(R) -> R) is king.

Answer 5

I'm going to cheat and say the Dirac delta. It was my introduction to distributions.

Answer 6

Riemann zeta function FTW!

Answer 7

Weierstrass function
Continuous everywhere, but not differentiable anywhere

Answer 8

f(x) = x

Identity function is the best function. Change my mind.

Answer 9

Let G be a group, with g in G.

The function G-> G that maps x to gx is my favorite.

The fact that it is bijective (therefore a permutation of G) is the reason why every group is (subgroup of) a permutation group (aka Cayley's Theorem).

That kind of represents Group Theory to me.

Answer 10

Recall that the Cantor set `K` is the space of infinite bit sequences, topologized as the product of countably many copies of `2`. Let `L` be the space of arbitrary functions `K -> 2`, and let `N*` be the one-point compactification of `N`, i.e., the closure of `N` as a subset of the real projective line. Define a map `w : L -> N*` as follows:

* If `f : K -> 2` is continuous, then `w(f)` is the smallest natural number `n` such that the value of `f(x)` is completely determined by the first `n` bits of `x`. (It is easy to see that `f` is continuous if and only if such an `n` exists.)

* If `f : K -> 2` isn't continuous, then `w(f)` is infinity.

Today, my favorite function is `w`.

**EDIT:** Fixed typo.