Paul's Online Notes
Paul's Online Notes
Home / Calculus I / Review / Functions
Show Mobile Notice Show All Notes Hide All Notes
Mobile Notice
You appear to be on a device with a "narrow" screen width (i.e. you are probably on a mobile phone). Due to the nature of the mathematics on this site it is best viewed in landscape mode. If your device is not in landscape mode many of the equations will run off the side of your device (you should be able to scroll/swipe to see them) and some of the menu items will be cut off due to the narrow screen width.

Section 1.1 : Review : Functions

30. Find the domain of \(\displaystyle h\left( y \right) = \sqrt {2y + 9} - \frac{1}{{\sqrt {2 - y} }}\).

Show All Steps Hide All Steps

Hint : The domain of this function will be the set of all values of \(y\) that will work in both terms of this function.
Start Solution

The domain of this function will be the set of all \(y\)’s that we can plug into both terms in this function and get a real number back as a value. This means that we first need to determine the domain of each of the two terms.

For the first term we need to require,

\[2y + 9 \ge 0\hspace{0.25in}\hspace{0.25in} \Rightarrow \hspace{0.25in}\hspace{0.25in}y \ge - \frac{9}{2}\]

For the second term we need to require,

\[2 - y > 0\hspace{0.25in}\hspace{0.25in} \Rightarrow \hspace{0.25in}\hspace{0.25in}y < 2\]

Note that we need the second condition to be strictly positive to avoid division by zero as well.

Hint : What values of \(y\) are in both of these?
Show Step 2

Now, we just need the set of \(y\)’s that are in both conditions above. In this case we need all the \(y\)’s that will be greater than or equal to \( - \frac{9}{2}\) AND less than 2. The domain is then,

\[{\mbox{Domain : }} - \frac{9}{2} \le y < 2\]