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There is a corresponding greatest-lower-bound property; an ordered set possesses the greatest-lower-bound property if and only if it also possesses the least-upper-bound property; the least-upper-bound of the set of lower bounds of a set is the greatest-lower-bound, and the greatest-lower-bound of the set of upper bounds of a set is the least ...
The set S = {42} has 42 as both an upper bound and a lower bound; all other numbers are either an upper bound or a lower bound for that S. Every subset of the natural numbers has a lower bound since the natural numbers have a least element (0 or 1, depending on convention). An infinite subset of the natural numbers cannot be bounded from above.
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 ...
A real set with upper bounds and its supremum. A set S of real numbers is called bounded from above if there exists some real number k (not necessarily in S) such that k ≥ s for all s in S. The number k is called an upper bound of S. The terms bounded from below and lower bound are similarly defined. A set S is bounded if it
The least-upper-bound property states that every nonempty subset of real numbers having an upper bound (or bounded above) must have a least upper bound (or supremum) in the set of real numbers. The rational number line Q does not have the least upper bound property. An example is the subset of rational numbers
A lower bound is typically described by a theorem like "for every element α of some subset of the real numbers and every rational number p/q, we have | | > ()". In some cases, "every rational number" may be replaced by "all rational numbers except a finite number of them", which amounts to multiplying φ by some constant depending on α .
But this is just the least element of the whole poset, if it has one, since the empty subset of a poset P is conventionally considered to be both bounded from above and from below, with every element of P being both an upper and lower bound of the empty subset. Other common names for the least element are bottom and zero (0).
In fact, if this were false, then the integers would have a least upper bound N; then, N – 1 would not be an upper bound, and there would be an integer n such that n > N – 1, and thus n + 1 > N, which is a contradiction with the upper-bound property of N. The real numbers are uniquely specified by the above properties.