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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 numbers .
The rational number line Q does not have the least upper bound property. An example is the subset of rational numbers = {<}. This set has an upper bound. However, this set has no least upper bound in Q: the least upper bound as a subset of the reals would be √2, but it does not exist in Q.
Then has an upper bound (, for example, or ) but no least upper bound in : If we suppose is the least upper bound, a contradiction is immediately deduced because between any two reals and (including and ) there exists some rational , which itself would have to be the least upper bound (if >) or a member of greater than (if <).
Other common names for the least element are bottom and zero (0). The dual notion, the empty lower bound, is the greatest element, top, or unit (1). Posets that have a bottom are sometimes called pointed, while posets with a top are called unital or topped. An order that has both a least and a greatest element is bounded.
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 ...
A lattice is an abstract structure studied in the mathematical subdisciplines of order theory and abstract algebra.It consists of a partially ordered set in which every pair of elements has a unique supremum (also called a least upper bound or join) and a unique infimum (also called a greatest lower bound or meet).
The completion is the Boolean algebra of regular cuts of A. Here a cut is a subset U of A + (the non-zero elements of A) such that if q is in U and p ≤ q then p is in U, and is called regular if whenever p is not in U there is some r ≤ p such that U has no elements ≤ r. Each element p of A corresponds to the cut of elements ≤ p.
For example, if the domain is the set of all real numbers, one can assert in first-order logic the existence of an additive inverse of each real number by writing ∀x ∃y (x + y = 0) but one needs second-order logic to assert the least-upper-bound property for sets of real numbers, which states that every bounded, nonempty set of real numbers ...