Piecewise functions let us make functions that do anything we want! Example: A Doctor's fee is based on the length of time. Which we can write like this: You visit for 12 minutes, what is the fee? $80. You visit for 20 minutes, what is the fee? $80+$5 (20-15) = $105. The Absolute Value Function is a famous Piecewise Function. It has two pieces:
A piecewise function is a function f (x) which has different definitions in different intervals of x. The graph of a piecewise function has different pieces corresponding to each of its definitions.
Piecewise functions can be defined using the common functional notation, where the body of the function is an array of functions and associated subdomains. A semicolon or comma may follow the subfunction or subdomain columns. [2]
Piecewise functions follow differnt rules depending on the value of x. Learn how to solve, graph, and read piecewise functions here!