سوال ۲۹ کنکور ارشد علوم کامپیوتر ۱۳۹۷

PASSAGE 3 (excerpt):

"The study of optimization as an independent topic must, of course, be regarded as a branch of applied mathematics. ... Functional analysis is the study of vector spaces resulting from a merging of geometry, linear algebra, and analysis. ... Some readers may look with great expectation toward functional analysis, hoping to discover new powerful techniques that will enable them to solve important problems beyond the reach of simpler mathematical analysis. Such hopes are rarely realized in practice. The primary utility of functional analysis for the purposes of this book is its role as a unifying discipline, gathering a number of apparently diverse, specialized mathematical tricks into one or a few general geometric principles."

Functional analysis __________.