Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
An axiomatic definition of the real numbers consists of defining them as the elements of a complete ordered field. [2] [3] [4] This means the following: The real numbers form a set, commonly denoted , containing two distinguished elements denoted 0 and 1, and on which are defined two binary operations and one binary relation; the operations are called addition and multiplication of real ...
The real numbers can be constructed as a completion of the rational numbers, in such a way that a sequence defined by a decimal or binary expansion like (3; 3.1; 3.14; 3.141; 3.1415; ...) converges to a unique real number—in this case π. For details and other constructions of real numbers, see Construction of the real numbers.
There is a construction of the real numbers based on the idea of using Dedekind cuts of rational numbers to name real numbers; e.g. the cut (L,R) described above would name . If one were to repeat the construction of real numbers with Dedekind cuts (i.e., "close" the set of real numbers by adding all possible Dedekind cuts), one would obtain no ...
Dedekind used his cut to construct the irrational, real numbers.. In mathematics, Dedekind cuts, named after German mathematician Richard Dedekind (but previously considered by Joseph Bertrand [1] [2]), are а method of construction of the real numbers from the rational numbers.
The logical status of the property depends on the construction of the real numbers used: in the synthetic approach, the property is usually taken as an axiom for the real numbers (see least upper bound axiom); in a constructive approach, the property must be proved as a theorem, either directly from the construction or as a consequence of some ...
The real numbers have various lattice-theoretic properties that are absent in the complex numbers. Also, the real numbers form an ordered field, in which sums and products of positive numbers are also positive. Moreover, the ordering of the real numbers is total, and the real numbers have the least upper bound property:
The extended real number line (real numbers together with +∞ and −∞) is a completion in this sense of the rational numbers: the set of rational numbers {3, 3.1, 3.14, 3.141, 3.1415, 3.14159, ...} does not have a rational least upper bound, but in the real numbers it has the least upper bound π. [4]
The completion with respect to the usual absolute value (from the order) is the field of real numbers. By this construction the field of real numbers is Archimedean both as an ordered field and as a normed field. [5]