TOPICS
Search

Radial Function


A radial function is a function phi:R^+->R satisfying phi(x,c)=phi(|x-c|) for points c in some subset Xi subset R^n. Here, |·| denotes the standard Euclidean norm in R^n and Xi is a discrete subset of R^n whose elements c are called centers.

A collection of such functions phi which independently span a space S is usually called a radial basis of S. In this case, the functions phi are known as radial basis functions. Radial bases and radial basis functions play an important role in many areas of mathematics and approximation theory including statistics and partial differential equations.


See also

Approximation Theory, Basis, Partial Differential Equation, Vector Basis, Vector Space Span

This entry contributed by Christopher Stover

Explore with Wolfram|Alpha

References

Buhmann, M. Radial Basis Functions: Theory and Implementations. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Cite this as:

Stover, Christopher. "Radial Function." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource, created by Eric W. Weisstein. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/RadialFunction.html

Subject classifications