Monotonic function

Monotonicity redirects here. For information on monotonicity as it pertains to voting systems, see monotonicity
criterion.
Monotonic redirects here.
For other uses, see
Monotone (disambiguation).
In mathematics, a monotonic function (or mono-

Figure 3. A function that is not monotonic

preserves the given order. This concept rst arose in

calculus, and was later generalized to the more abstract
setting of order theory.
Figure 1. A monotonically increasing function. It is strictly increasing on the left and right while just non-decreasing in the
middle.

1 Monotonicity in calculus and

analysis
In calculus, a function f dened on a subset of the real
numbers with real values is called monotonic if and only
if it is either entirely increasing or decreasing. It is called
monotonically increasing (also increasing or nondecreasing), if for all x and y such that x y one has
f (x) f (y) , so f preserves the order (see Figure 1).
Likewise, a function is called monotonically decreasing
(also decreasing or nonincreasing) if, whenever x y
, then f (x) f (y) , so it reverses the order (see Figure
2).

If the order in the denition of monotonicity is replaced by the strict order < , then one obtains a stronger
requirement. A function with this property is called
strictly increasing. Again, by inverting the order symbol, one nds a corresponding concept called strictly decreasing. Functions that are strictly increasing or decreasing are one-to-one (because for x not equal to y ,
Figure 2. A monotonically decreasing function
either x < y or x > y and so, by monotonicity, either
f (x) < f (y) or f (x) > f (y) , thus f (x) is not equal to
tone function) is a function between ordered sets that f (y) .)
1

4 MONOTONICITY IN ORDER THEORY

When functions between discrete sets are considered in

combinatorics, it is not always obvious that increasing
and decreasing are taken to include the possibility of
repeating the same value at successive arguments, so one
nds the terms weakly increasing and weakly decreasing to stress this possibility.

A function is unimodal if it is monotonically increasing

up to some point (the mode) and then monotonically decreasing.
When f is a strictly monotonic function, then f is injective
on its domain, and if T is the range of f , then there is an
inverse function on T for f .

The terms non-decreasing and non-increasing should

not be confused with the (much weaker) negative qualications not decreasing and not increasing. For exam- 2 Monotonicity in topology
ple, the function of gure 3 rst falls, then rises, then falls
again. It is therefore not decreasing and not increasing,
A map f : X Y is said to be monotone if each of
but it is neither non-decreasing nor non-increasing.
its bers is connected i.e. for each element y in Y the
The term monotonic transformation can also possibly (possibly empty) set f 1 (y) is connected.
cause some confusion because it refers to a transformation by a strictly increasing function. Notably, this is the
case in economics with respect to the ordinal properties 3 Monotonicity in functional analof a utility function being preserved across a monotonic
ysis
transform (see also monotone preferences).[1]
A function f (x) is said to be absolutely monotonic over
space X, a
an interval (a, b) if the derivatives of all orders of f are In functional analysis on a topological vector

(possibly
non-linear)
operator
T
:
X

X
is
said
to be a
nonnegative at all points on the interval.
monotone operator if

1.1

Some basic applications and results

(T u T v, u v) 0

u, v X.

The following properties are true for a monotonic func- Kachurovskiis theorem shows that convex functions on
tion f : R R :
Banach spaces have monotonic operators as their derivatives.
f has limits from the right and from the left at every
A subset G of X X is said to be a monotone set if for
point of its domain;
every pair [u1 ,w1 ] and [u2 ,w2 ] in G,
f has a limit at positive or negative innity ( )
of either a real number, , or () .
f can only have jump discontinuities;

(w1 w2 , u1 u2 ) 0.

G is said to be maximal monotone if it is maximal

f can only have countably many discontinuities in among all monotone sets in the sense of set inclusion. The
graph of a monotone operator G(T) is a monotone set. A
its domain.
monotone operator is said to be maximal monotone if
its graph is a maximal monotone set.
These properties are the reason why monotonic functions
are useful in technical work in analysis. Two facts about
these functions are:

4 Monotonicity in order theory

if f is a monotonic function dened on an interval

I , then f is dierentiable almost everywhere on I ,
i.e. the set {x : x I} of numbers x in I such that
f is not dierentiable in x has Lebesgue measure
zero. In addition, this result cannot be improved to
countable: see Cantor function.

Order theory deals with arbitrary partially ordered sets

and preordered sets in addition to real numbers. The
above denition of monotonicity is relevant in these cases
as well. However, the terms increasing and decreasing are avoided, since their conventional pictorial representation does not apply to orders that are not total. Fur if f is a monotonic function dened on an interval thermore, the strict relations < and > are of little use in
many non-total orders and hence no additional terminol[a, b] , then f is Riemann integrable.
ogy is introduced for them.
An important application of monotonic functions is in
probability theory. If X is a random variable, its
cumulative distribution function FX (x) = Prob(X x)
is a monotonically increasing function.

A monotone function is also called isotone, or orderpreserving. The dual notion is often called antitone,
anti-monotone, or order-reversing. Hence, an antitone
function f satises the property

3
x y implies f(x) f(y),

instance at least two of a,b,c hold is a monotonic function of a,b,c, since it can be written for instance as ((a and
b) or (a and c) or (b and c)).

for all x and y in its domain. The composite of two monoThe number of such functions on n variables is known as
tone mappings is also monotone.
the Dedekind number of n.
A constant function is both monotone and antitone; conversely, if f is both monotone and antitone, and if the
domain of f is a lattice, then f must be constant.
Monotone functions are central in order theory. They appear in most articles on the subject and examples from
special applications are found in these places. Some notable special monotone functions are order embeddings
(functions for which x y if and only if f(x) f(y)) and
order isomorphisms (surjective order embeddings).

Monotone cubic interpolation

Pseudo-monotone operator
Total monotonicity

Monotonicity in the context of

8 Notes
search algorithms

In the context of search algorithms monotonicity (also

called consistency) is a condition applied to heuristic
functions. A heuristic h(n) is monotonic if, for every
node n and every successor n' of n generated by any action a, the estimated cost of reaching the goal from n is
no greater than the step cost of getting to n' plus the
estimated cost of reaching the goal from n' ,

h(n) c(n, a, n ) + h(n ).

This is a form of triangle inequality, with n, n', and the
goal Gn closest to n. Because every monotonic heuristic is also admissible, monotonicity is a stricter requirement than admissibility. In some heuristic algorithms,
such as A*, the algorithm can be considered optimal if
it is monotonic.[2]

7 See also

Boolean functions

In Boolean algebra, a monotonic function is one such

that for all ai and bi in {0,1}, if a1 b1 , a2 b2 , ...,
an bn (i.e. the Cartesian product {0, 1}n is ordered
coordinatewise), then f(a1 , ..., an) f(b1 , ..., bn). In
other words, a Boolean function is monotonic if, for every
combination of inputs, switching one of the inputs from
false to true can only cause the output to switch from false
to true and not from true to false. Graphically, this means
that a Boolean function is monotonic when in its Hasse
diagram (dual of its Venn diagram), there is no 1 (red
vertex) connected to a higher 0 (white vertex).
The monotonic Boolean functions are precisely those that
can be dened by an expression combining the inputs
(which may appear more than once) using only the operators and and or (in particular not is forbidden). For

[1] See the section on Cardinal Versus Ordinal Utility in

Simon & Blume (1994).
[2] Conditions for optimality: Admissibility and consistency
pg. 94-95 (Russell & Norvig 2010).

9 Bibliography
Bartle, Robert G. (1976). The elements of real analysis (second ed.).
Grtzer, George (1971). Lattice theory: rst concepts and distributive lattices. ISBN 0-7167-0442-0.
Pemberton, Malcolm; Rau, Nicholas (2001). Mathematics for economists: an introductory textbook.
Manchester University Press. ISBN 0-7190-33411.
Renardy, Michael and Rogers, Robert C. (2004).
An introduction to partial dierential equations.
Texts in Applied Mathematics 13 (Second ed.).
New York: Springer-Verlag. p. 356. ISBN 0-38700444-0.
Riesz, Frigyes and Bla Szkefalvi-Nagy (1990).
Functional Analysis. Courier Dover Publications.
ISBN 978-0-486-66289-3.
Russell, Stuart J.; Norvig, Peter (2010). Articial
Intelligence: A Modern Approach (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. ISBN
978-0-13-604259-4.
Simon, Carl P.; Blume, Lawrence (April 1994).
Mathematics for Economists (rst ed.). ISBN 9780-393-95733-4. (Denition 9.31)

10

10

External links

Hazewinkel, Michiel, ed. (2001), Monotone function, Encyclopedia of Mathematics, Springer, ISBN
978-1-55608-010-4
Convergence of a Monotonic Sequence by Anik
Debnath and Thomas Roxlo (The Harker School),
Wolfram Demonstrations Project.
Weisstein, Eric W.,
MathWorld.

Monotonic Function,

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