Multiwfn forum

zulqarnain

Member

Registered: 2017-11-27

Posts: 6

Functional and function

Hi Professor
What is difference between function and functional?

sobereva

Tian Lu (Multiwfn developer)

From: Beijing

Registered: 2017-09-11

Posts: 1,760

Website

Re: Functional and function

Functional can be regarded as "function of function".
For example, according to DFT, energy of a system is determined by electron density distribution in ground state, while electron density itself is a function, therefore, energy is functional of electron density.

zulqarnain

Member

Registered: 2017-11-27

Posts: 6

Re: Functional and function

Thanks a lot.