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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.
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.
This concept is also called supremum or join, and for a set S one writes sup(S) or for its least upper bound. Conversely, the greatest lower bound is known as infimum or meet and denoted inf(S) or . These concepts play an important role in many applications of order theory.
A complete lattice is a lattice in which every subset of elements of L has an infimum and supremum; this generalizes the analogous properties of the real numbers. An order-embedding is a function that maps distinct elements of S to distinct elements of L such that each pair of elements in S has the same ordering in L as they do in S.
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, specifically in order theory and functional analysis, a subset of an ordered vector space is said to be order complete in if for every non-empty subset of that is order bounded in (meaning contained in an interval, which is a set of the form [,]:= {:}, for some ,), the supremum ' and the infimum both exist and are elements of .
Then f preserves the supremum of S if the set f(S) = {f(x) | x in S} has a least upper bound in Q which is equal to f(s), i.e. f(sup S) = sup f(S) This definition consists of two requirements: the supremum of the set f(S) exists and it is equal to f(s). This corresponds to the abovementioned parallel to category theory, but is not always ...
The functions are defined in terms of the infimum and supremum in order to make the Dini derivatives as "bullet proof" as possible, so that the Dini derivatives are well-defined for almost all functions, even for functions that are not conventionally differentiable.