Childhood and maturity of the function concept
The author's purpose in this paper is to carry out and present to the reader -- preferably in the context of mathematics education -- a historical-epistemological analysis of the contributions to the concept of function made by European and non-European mathematicians, from the 18th century, up to the contributions made, in the first half and part of the second half of the 20th century, by the Nicolas Bourbaki group, contributions that were essential to consolidate, within the world mathematical community, the concept of function. For his work, the author initially addresses the contribution, in this regard, made by Johann Bernoulli in the 18th century, and goes up to the 20th century, with the significant contributions made, in this regard, by the Nicolas Bourbaki group to improve the concept of function in the mathematics developed at that time. \N\NWe want to highlight to the reader -- which the author did not do --, due to their importance for the context of the development of mathematics in the 20th and 21st centuries, some of the contributions made by N. Bourbaki, which include the following: 1) Foundation in Set Theory: N. Bourbaki worked to base all mathematics of the time on set theory, which helped to create a more rigorous and unified basis for the study of functions. 2) New Terminology: Nicolas Bourbaki introduced new terminologies and concepts, such as ``injective, ``subjective and ``bijective to describe different types of functions. 3) Symbols and Notations: N. Bourbaki popularized the use of symbols and notations that became standard in mathematics from the second half of the 20th century, such as the symbol for the empty set, and the use of bold letters to represent sets of numbers. 4) Textbooks: The N. Bourbaki group published a series of textbooks that presented the advanced mathematics of the time systematically and rigorously, influencing the way functions and other mathematical concepts are taught and understood today. These contributions helped to refine and standardize the concept of a function, making it more accessible and understandable to mathematicians and students of mathematics worldwide.
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