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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.
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 <).
Part of what this argument shows is that there is a least upper bound of the sequence 0.9, 0.99, 0.999, etc.: the smallest number that is greater than all of the terms of the sequence. One of the axioms of the real number system is the completeness axiom, which states that every bounded sequence has a least upper bound.
The aleph numbers differ from the infinity commonly found in algebra and calculus, in that the alephs measure the sizes of sets, while infinity is commonly defined either as an extreme limit of the real number line (applied to a function or sequence that "diverges to infinity" or "increases without bound"), or as an extreme point of the ...
13934 and other numbers x such that x ≥ 13934 would be an upper bound for S. 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 ...
In its simplest form, it says that a non-decreasing bounded-above sequence of real numbers ... converges to its smallest upper bound, its supremum. Likewise, a non-increasing bounded-below sequence converges to its largest lower bound, its infimum. In particular, infinite sums of non-negative numbers converge to the supremum of the partial sums ...
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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.