Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
An infimum of a set is always and only defined relative to a superset of the set in question. For example, there is no infimum of the positive real numbers inside the positive real numbers (as their own superset), nor any infimum of the positive real numbers inside the complex numbers with positive real part.
A real number x is called an upper bound for S if x ≥ s for all s ∈ S. A real number x is the least upper bound (or supremum) for S if x is an upper bound for S and x ≤ y for every upper bound y of S. The least-upper-bound property states that any non-empty set of real numbers that has an upper bound must have a least upper bound in real ...
Exactly in the same way one defines the essential infimum as the supremum of the essential lower bound s, that is, = {: ({: <}) =} if the set of essential lower bounds is nonempty, and as otherwise; again there is an alternative expression as = {: ()} (with this being if the set is empty).
The supremum of B is then equal to the infimum of X: since each element of X is an upper bound of B, sup B is smaller than all elements of X, i.e. sup B is in B. It is the greatest element of B and hence the infimum of X. In a dual way, the existence of all infima implies the existence of all suprema.
For example, the ancient Babylonians discovered a method for computing square roots of numbers. In contrast, the famed Archimedes constructed sequences of polygons, that inscribed and circumscribed a unit circle , in order to get a lower and upper bound for the circles circumference - which is the circle number Pi ( π {\displaystyle \pi } ).
In mathematics, the limit of a sequence of sets,, … (subsets of a common set ) is a set whose elements are determined by the sequence in either of two equivalent ways: (1) by upper and lower bounds on the sequence that converge monotonically to the same set (analogous to convergence of real-valued sequences) and (2) by convergence of a sequence of indicator functions which are themselves ...
In mathematical analysis, limit superior and limit inferior are important tools for studying sequences of real numbers.Since the supremum and infimum of an unbounded set of real numbers may not exist (the reals are not a complete lattice), it is convenient to consider sequences in the affinely extended real number system: we add the positive and negative infinities to the real line to give the ...
For example, an infimum is just a categorical product. More generally, one can capture infima and suprema under the abstract notion of a categorical limit (or colimit , respectively). Another place where categorical ideas occur is the concept of a (monotone) Galois connection , which is just the same as a pair of adjoint functors .