Does the following statement make sense?

Question

My Pre-Cal professor asked my class if the following statement made sense mathematically:

"My body temperature is a function of my age."

We were assigned to explain why or why not this statement made sense. Could anyone please help me? I said that the statement does not make sense because body temperature and age have either no correlation or a weak correlation and because it would be an inconsistent function.

Answer 1

My Pre-Cal professor asked my class if the following statement made sense mathematically:

"My body temperature is a function of my age."

This question causes you to review the definition of a function. Often, we need to review before we may learn new material:

function -- A special relationship where each input has a single output. It is often written as "f(x)" where x is the input value.

In the statement, x is "my age" and f(x) is "my body temperature.." As a function, that says that I have one body temperature at any given time (that is, my age). Of course, I may have that same body temperature at many other times, and it may go up and down as I exercise, as I get sick, as I take a long walk on a snowy day, ... Correlation, predictability, and other relationships have nothing to do with it. It is a function if, at any time, I have only one body temperature.

Answer 2

The statement suggests an independent variable, age and a dependent variable, body temperature. Body temperature is a function of body health, and is quite steady and the same throughout life. Body temperature can be measured by core values (taken by a thin probe on a catheter inserted into a central blood vessel), by rectum, orally, tympanic (ear), or forehead. As long as temperature is measured in the same manner, the average temperature of elderly patients in a nursing home, young adults, and children is all the same and is not a function of age.

Abnormal body temperature as a result of illness (say an upper respiratory infection) does vary with age. Children and infants in general, have a much greater elevation in their temperature as a result of infection than do elderly patients.