Let me try.

In US schools during K-12, we generally learn functions in two ways:

1. 2-d line chart with an x-axis and y-axis, like temperature over time, history of stock price, etc. Classic independent variable is on the horizontal axis, dependent variable is on the vertical axis. And even people who forgotten almost all math can instantly understand the graphics displayed when they're watching CNBC or a TV weather report.

2. We also think of functions like little machines that do things for us. E.g., y = f(x) means that f() is like a black box. We give the black box input 'x'; then the black box f() returns output 'y'. (Obviously very relevant to the life of programmers.)

But one of 3blue-1brown's excellent videos finally showed me at least a few more ways of thinking of functions. This is where a function acts as a map from what "thing" to another thing (technically from Domain X to Co-Domain Y).

So if we think of NVIDIA stock price over time (Interpretation 1) as a graph, it's not just a picture that goes up and to the right. It's mapping each point in time on the x-axis to a price on the y-axis, sure! Let's use the example, x=November 21, 2025 maps to y=$178/share. Of course, interpretation 2 might say that the black box of the function takes in "November 21, 2025" as input and returns "$178" as output.

But what what I call Interpretation 3 does is that it maps from the domain of Time to the output Co-domain of NVDA Stock Price.

3. This is a 1D to 1D mapping. aka, both x and y are scalar values. In the language that jamespropp used, we send the value "November 21, 2025" to the value "$178".

But we need not restrict ourselves to a 1-dimensional input domain (time) and a 1-dimensional output domain (price).

We could map from a 2-d Domain X to another 2-d Co-Domain Y. For example X could be 2-d geographical coordinates. And Y could be 2-d wind vector.

So we would feed input of say location (5,4) as input. and our 2Dto2D function would output wind vector (North by 2mph, East by 7mph).

So we are "sending" input (5,4) in the first 2d plane to output (+2,+7) in the second 2d plane.