In mathematics, the qualifier pointwise is used to indicate that a certain property to defined by considering each value f ( x ) f(x) f(x) of some function f f f. An important class of pointwise concepts are the pointwise operations, that is, operations defined on functions by applying the operations to function values separately for each point in the domain of definition. Important relations can also be defined pointwise.
Contents
1 Pointwise operations
1.1 Formal definition
A binary operation
o
:
Y
∗
Y
→
Y
o: Y * Y \to Y
o:Y∗Y→Y on a set
Y
Y
Y can be lifted pointwise to an operations
O
:
(
X
→
Y
)
×
(
X
→
Y
)
→
(
X
→
Y
)
O: (X→Y) × (X→Y) → (X→Y)
O:(X→Y)×(X→Y)→(X→Y)
on the set
X
→
Y
X \to Y
X→Y of all functions from
X
→
Y
X \to Y
X→Y as follows: Given two functions
f
1
:
X
→
Y
,
f
2
:
X
→
Y
f_1: X \to Y, f_2: X \to Y
f1:X→Y,f2:X→Y, define the function
O
(
f
1
,
f
2
)
:
X
→
Y
O(f1, f2): X → Y
O(f1,f2):X→Y by
(
O
(
f
1
,
f
2
)
)
(
x
)
=
o
(
f
1
(
x
)
,
f
2
(
x
)
)
(O(f1, f2))(x) = o(f1(x), f2(x))
(O(f1,f2))(x)=o(f1(x),f2(x)) for all
x
∈
X
x \in X
x∈X
Commonly, o , O o, O o,O are denoted by the same symbol. A similar definition is used for unary operations o o o, and for operations of the arity.
1.2 Examples
(
f
+
g
)
(
x
)
=
f
(
x
)
+
g
(
x
)
(pointwise addition)
(
f
⋅
g
)
(
x
)
=
f
(
x
)
⋅
g
(
x
)
(pointwise multiplication)
(
λ
⋅
f
)
(
x
)
=
λ
⋅
f
(
x
)
(pointwise multiplication by a scalar)
{\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}(f+g)(x)&=f(x)+g(x)&{\text{(pointwise addition)}}\\(f\cdot g)(x)&=f(x)\cdot g(x)&{\text{(pointwise multiplication)}}\\(\lambda \cdot f)(x)&=\lambda \cdot f(x)&{\text{(pointwise multiplication by a scalar)}}\end{aligned}}}
(f+g)(x)(f⋅g)(x)(λ⋅f)(x)=f(x)+g(x)=f(x)⋅g(x)=λ⋅f(x)(pointwise addition)(pointwise multiplication)(pointwise multiplication by a scalar)
where
f
,
g
:
X
→
R
f, g: X \to R
f,g:X→R
See also pointwise product, and scalar.
An example of an operation of functions which is not pointwise is convolution.
1.3 Properties
Pointwise operations inherit such properties as associativity, commutativity and distributivity from corresponding operations on the codomain. If A A A is some algebraic structure, the set of all functions X X X to the carrier set of A A A can be turned into an algebraic structure of the same type in an analogous way.