Basic Functions in python

Question

I am having trouble understanding why this function works in python (it takes a list in as an argument):

def minimax(x):
    minimum = maximum = x[0]
    for i in x[1:]:
        if i < minimum: 
            minimum = i 
        elif i > maximum: 
            maximum = i
    return (minimum,maximum)

What does "minimum = maximum = x[0]" in the second line do? How does python "know" what the words "maximum" and "minimum" are referring to?

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65889931/basic-functions-in-python

Answer 1

minimum = maximum = x[0]

Is the same as

minimum = x[0]
maximum = x[0]

it knows what they are(numbers) because you created the variables and assigned a value to them