# Real number

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In mathematics, a real number is a value of a continuous quantity that can represent a distance along a line (or alternatively, a quantity that can be represented as an infinite decimal expansion). The adjective real in this context was introduced in the 17th century by René Descartes, who distinguished between real and imaginary roots of polynomials. The real numbers include all the rational numbers, such as the integer −5 and the fraction 4/3, and all the irrational numbers, such as 2 (1.41421356..., the square root of 2, an irrational algebraic number). Included within the irrationals are the real transcendental numbers, such as π (3.14159265...). [1] In addition to measuring distance, real numbers can be used to measure quantities such as time, mass, energy, velocity, and many more. The set of real numbers is denoted using the symbol R or ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$ [2] [3] and is sometimes called "the reals". [4]

## Contents

Real numbers can be thought of as points on an infinitely long line called the number line or real line, where the points corresponding to integers are equally spaced. Any real number can be determined by a possibly infinite decimal representation, such as that of 8.632, where each consecutive digit is measured in units one-tenth the size of the previous one. The real line can be thought of as a part of the complex plane, and the real numbers can be thought of as a part of the complex numbers.

These descriptions of the real numbers are not sufficiently rigorous by the modern standards of pure mathematics. The discovery of a suitably rigorous definition of the real numbers—indeed, the realization that a better definition was needed—was one of the most important developments of 19th-century mathematics. The current standard axiomatic definition is that real numbers form the unique Dedekind-complete ordered field (${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$ ; + ; · ; <), up to an isomorphism, [lower-alpha 1] whereas popular constructive definitions of real numbers include declaring them as equivalence classes of Cauchy sequences (of rational numbers), Dedekind cuts, or infinite decimal representations, together with precise interpretations for the arithmetic operations and the order relation. All these definitions satisfy the axiomatic definition and are thus equivalent.

The set of all real numbers is uncountable, in the sense that while both the set of all natural numbers and the set of all real numbers are infinite sets, there can be no one-to-one function from the real numbers to the natural numbers. In fact, the cardinality of the set of all real numbers, denoted by ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {c}}}$ and called the cardinality of the continuum, [2] is strictly greater than the cardinality of the set of all natural numbers (denoted ${\displaystyle \aleph _{0}}$, 'aleph-naught' [2] ).

The statement that there is no subset of the reals with cardinality strictly greater than ${\displaystyle \aleph _{0}}$ and strictly smaller than ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {c}}}$ is known as the continuum hypothesis (CH). It is neither provable nor refutable using the axioms of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory including the axiom of choice (ZFC)—the standard foundation of modern mathematics. In fact, some models of ZFC satisfy CH, while others violate it.

## History

Simple fractions were used by the Egyptians around 1000 BC; the Vedic "Shulba Sutras" ("The rules of chords") in, c. 600 BC, include what may be the first "use" of irrational numbers. The concept of irrationality was implicitly accepted by early Indian mathematicians such as Manava (c. 750–690 BC), who were aware that the square roots of certain numbers, such as 2 and 61, could not be exactly determined. [5] Around 500 BC, the Greek mathematicians led by Pythagoras realized the need for irrational numbers, in particular the irrationality of the square root of 2.

The Middle Ages brought about the acceptance of zero, negative numbers, integers, and fractional numbers, first by Indian and Chinese mathematicians, and then by Arabic mathematicians, who were also the first to treat irrational numbers as algebraic objects (the latter being made possible by the development of algebra). [6] Arabic mathematicians merged the concepts of "number" and "magnitude" into a more general idea of real numbers. [7] The Egyptian mathematician Abū Kāmil Shujā ibn Aslam (c. 850–930) was the first to accept irrational numbers as solutions to quadratic equations, or as coefficients in an equation (often in the form of square roots, cube roots and fourth roots). [8]

In the 16th century, Simon Stevin created the basis for modern decimal notation, and insisted that there is no difference between rational and irrational numbers in this regard.

In the 17th century, Descartes introduced the term "real" to describe roots of a polynomial, distinguishing them from "imaginary" ones.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, there was much work on irrational and transcendental numbers. Johann Heinrich Lambert (1761) gave the first flawed proof that π cannot be rational; Adrien-Marie Legendre (1794) completed the proof, [9] and showed that π is not the square root of a rational number. [10] Paolo Ruffini (1799) and Niels Henrik Abel (1842) both constructed proofs of the Abel–Ruffini theorem: that the general quintic or higher equations cannot be solved by a general formula involving only arithmetical operations and roots.

Évariste Galois (1832) developed techniques for determining whether a given equation could be solved by radicals, which gave rise to the field of Galois theory. Joseph Liouville (1840) showed that neither e nor e2 can be a root of an integer quadratic equation, and then established the existence of transcendental numbers; Georg Cantor (1873) extended and greatly simplified this proof. [11] Charles Hermite (1873) first proved that e is transcendental, and Ferdinand von Lindemann (1882), showed that π is transcendental. Lindemann's proof was much simplified by Weierstrass (1885), still further by David Hilbert (1893), and has finally been made elementary by Adolf Hurwitz [12] and Paul Gordan. [13]

The development of calculus in the 18th century used the entire set of real numbers without having defined them rigorously. The first rigorous definition was published by Georg Cantor in 1871. In 1874, he showed that the set of all real numbers is uncountably infinite, but the set of all algebraic numbers is countably infinite. Contrary to widely held beliefs, his first method was not his famous diagonal argument, which he published in 1891. For more, see Cantor's first uncountability proof.

## Definition

The real number system ${\displaystyle (\mathbb {R}$ ;{}+{};{}\cdot {};{}<{})} can be defined axiomatically up to an isomorphism, which is described hereafter. There are also many ways to construct "the" real number system, and a popular approach involves starting from natural numbers, then defining rational numbers algebraically, and finally defining real numbers as equivalence classes of their Cauchy sequences or as Dedekind cuts, which are certain subsets of rational numbers. Another approach is to start from some rigorous axiomatization of Euclidean geometry (say of Hilbert or of Tarski), and then define the real number system geometrically. All these constructions of the real numbers have been shown to be equivalent, in the sense that the resulting number systems are isomorphic.

### Axiomatic approach

Let ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$ denote the set of all real numbers, then:

• The set ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$ is a field, meaning that addition and multiplication are defined and have the usual properties.
• The field ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$ is ordered, meaning that there is a total order ≥ such that for all real numbers x, y and z:
• if xy, then x + zy + z;
• if x ≥ 0 and y ≥ 0, then xy ≥ 0.
• The order is Dedekind-complete, meaning that every non-empty subset S of ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$ with an upper bound in ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$ has a least upper bound (a.k.a., supremum) in ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$.

The last property is what differentiates the reals from the rationals (and from other more exotic ordered fields). For example, ${\displaystyle \{x\in \mathbb {Q} :x^{2}<2\}}$ has a rational upper bound (e.g., 1.42), but no least rational upper bound, because ${\displaystyle {\sqrt {2}}}$ is not rational.

These properties imply the Archimedean property (which is not implied by other definitions of completeness), which states that the set of integers has no upper bound in the reals. 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. More precisely, given any two Dedekind-complete ordered fields ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} _{1}}$ and ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} _{2}}$, there exists a unique field isomorphism from ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} _{1}}$ to ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R_{2}} }$. This uniqueness allows us to think of them as essentially the same mathematical object.

For another axiomatization of ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$, see Tarski's axiomatization of the reals.

### Construction from the rational numbers

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.

## Properties

### Basic properties

• Any non-zero real number is either negative or positive.
• The sum and the product of two non-negative real numbers is again a non-negative real number, i.e., they are closed under these operations, and form a positive cone, thereby giving rise to a linear order of the real numbers along a number line.
• The real numbers make up an infinite set of numbers that cannot be injectively mapped to the infinite set of natural numbers, i.e., there are uncountably infinitely many real numbers, whereas the natural numbers are called countably infinite. This establishes that in some sense, there are more real numbers than there are elements in any countable set.
• There is a hierarchy of countably infinite subsets of the real numbers, e.g., the integers, the rationals, the algebraic numbers and the computable numbers, each set being a proper subset of the next in the sequence. The complements of all these sets (irrational, transcendental, and non-computable real numbers) in the reals are all uncountably infinite sets.
• Real numbers can be used to express measurements of continuous quantities. They may be expressed by decimal representations, most of them having an infinite sequence of digits to the right of the decimal point; these are often represented like 324.823122147..., where the ellipsis (three dots) indicates that there would still be more digits to come. This hints at the fact that we can precisely denote only a few, selected real numbers with finitely many symbols.

More formally, the real numbers have the two basic properties of being an ordered field, and having the least upper bound property. The first says that real numbers comprise a field, with addition and multiplication as well as division by non-zero numbers, which can be totally ordered on a number line in a way compatible with addition and multiplication. The second says that, if a non-empty set of real numbers has an upper bound, then it has a real least upper bound. The second condition distinguishes the real numbers from the rational numbers: for example, the set of rational numbers whose square is less than 2 is a set with an upper bound (e.g. 1.5) but no (rational) least upper bound: hence the rational numbers do not satisfy the least upper bound property.

### Completeness

A main reason for using real numbers is so that many sequences have limits. More formally, the reals are complete (in the sense of metric spaces or uniform spaces, which is a different sense than the Dedekind completeness of the order in the previous section):

A sequence (xn) of real numbers is called a Cauchy sequence if for any ε > 0 there exists an integer N (possibly depending on ε) such that the distance |xnxm| is less than ε for all n and m that are both greater than N. This definition, originally provided by Cauchy, formalizes the fact that the xn eventually come and remain arbitrarily close to each other.

A sequence (xn) converges to the limitx if its elements eventually come and remain arbitrarily close to x, that is, if for any ε > 0 there exists an integer N (possibly depending on ε) such that the distance |xnx| is less than ε for n greater than N.

Every convergent sequence is a Cauchy sequence, and the converse is true for real numbers, and this means that the topological space of the real numbers is complete.

The set of rational numbers is not complete. For example, the sequence (1; 1.4; 1.41; 1.414; 1.4142; 1.41421; ...), where each term adds a digit of the decimal expansion of the positive square root of 2, is Cauchy but it does not converge to a rational number (in the real numbers, in contrast, it converges to the positive square root of 2).

The completeness property of the reals is the basis on which calculus, and, more generally mathematical analysis are built. In particular, the test that a sequence is a Cauchy sequence allows proving that a sequence has a limit, without computing it, and even without knowing it.

For example, the standard series of the exponential function

${\displaystyle e^{x}=\sum _{n=0}^{\infty }{\frac {x^{n}}{n!}}}$

converges to a real number for every x, because the sums

${\displaystyle \sum _{n=N}^{M}{\frac {x^{n}}{n!}}}$

can be made arbitrarily small (independently of M) by choosing N sufficiently large. This proves that the sequence is Cauchy, and thus converges, showing that ${\displaystyle e^{x}}$ is well defined for every x.

### "The complete ordered field"

The real numbers are often described as "the complete ordered field", a phrase that can be interpreted in several ways.

First, an order can be lattice-complete. It is easy to see that no ordered field can be lattice-complete, because it can have no largest element (given any element z, z + 1 is larger).

Additionally, an order can be Dedekind-complete, see § Axiomatic approach. The uniqueness result at the end of that section justifies using the word "the" in the phrase "complete ordered field" when this is the sense of "complete" that is meant. This sense of completeness is most closely related to the construction of the reals from Dedekind cuts, since that construction starts from an ordered field (the rationals) and then forms the Dedekind-completion of it in a standard way.

These two notions of completeness ignore the field structure. However, an ordered group (in this case, the additive group of the field) defines a uniform structure, and uniform structures have a notion of completeness; the description in § Completeness is a special case. (We refer to the notion of completeness in uniform spaces rather than the related and better known notion for metric spaces, since the definition of metric space relies on already having a characterization of the real numbers.) It is not true that ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$ is the only uniformly complete ordered field, but it is the only uniformly complete Archimedean field , and indeed one often hears the phrase "complete Archimedean field" instead of "complete ordered field". Every uniformly complete Archimedean field must also be Dedekind-complete (and vice versa), justifying using "the" in the phrase "the complete Archimedean field". This sense of completeness is most closely related to the construction of the reals from Cauchy sequences (the construction carried out in full in this article), since it starts with an Archimedean field (the rationals) and forms the uniform completion of it in a standard way.

But the original use of the phrase "complete Archimedean field" was by David Hilbert, who meant still something else by it. He meant that the real numbers form the largest Archimedean field in the sense that every other Archimedean field is a subfield of ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$. Thus ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$ is "complete" in the sense that nothing further can be added to it without making it no longer an Archimedean field. This sense of completeness is most closely related to the construction of the reals from surreal numbers, since that construction starts with a proper class that contains every ordered field (the surreals) and then selects from it the largest Archimedean subfield.

The reals are uncountable; that is, there are strictly more real numbers than natural numbers, even though both sets are infinite. In fact, the cardinality of the reals equals that of the set of subsets (i.e. the power set) of the natural numbers, and Cantor's diagonal argument states that the latter set's cardinality is strictly greater than the cardinality of ${\displaystyle \mathbb {N} }$. Since the set of algebraic numbers is countable, almost all real numbers are transcendental. The non-existence of a subset of the reals with cardinality strictly between that of the integers and the reals is known as the continuum hypothesis. The continuum hypothesis can neither be proved nor be disproved; it is independent from the axioms of set theory.

As a topological space, the real numbers are separable. This is because the set of rationals, which is countable, is dense in the real numbers. The irrational numbers are also dense in the real numbers, however they are uncountable and have the same cardinality as the reals.

The real numbers form a metric space: the distance between x and y is defined as the absolute value |xy|. By virtue of being a totally ordered set, they also carry an order topology; the topology arising from the metric and the one arising from the order are identical, but yield different presentations for the topology—in the order topology as ordered intervals, in the metric topology as epsilon-balls. The Dedekind cuts construction uses the order topology presentation, while the Cauchy sequences construction uses the metric topology presentation. The reals form a contractible (hence connected and simply connected), separable and complete metric space of Hausdorff dimension  1. The real numbers are locally compact but not compact. There are various properties that uniquely specify them; for instance, all unbounded, connected, and separable order topologies are necessarily homeomorphic to the reals.

Every nonnegative real number has a square root in ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$, although no negative number does. This shows that the order on ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$ is determined by its algebraic structure. Also, every polynomial of odd degree admits at least one real root: these two properties make ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$ the premier example of a real closed field. Proving this is the first half of one proof of the fundamental theorem of algebra.

The reals carry a canonical measure, the Lebesgue measure, which is the Haar measure on their structure as a topological group normalized such that the unit interval [0;1] has measure 1. There exist sets of real numbers that are not Lebesgue measurable, e.g. Vitali sets.

The supremum axiom of the reals refers to subsets of the reals and is therefore a second-order logical statement. It is not possible to characterize the reals with first-order logic alone: the Löwenheim–Skolem theorem implies that there exists a countable dense subset of the real numbers satisfying exactly the same sentences in first-order logic as the real numbers themselves. The set of hyperreal numberssatisfies the same first order sentences as ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$. Ordered fields that satisfy the same first-order sentences as ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$ are called nonstandard models of ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$. This is what makes nonstandard analysis work; by proving a first-order statement in some nonstandard model (which may be easier than proving it in ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$), we know that the same statement must also be true of ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$.

The field ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$ of real numbers is an extension field of the field ${\displaystyle \mathbb {Q} }$ of rational numbers, and ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$ can therefore be seen as a vector space over ${\displaystyle \mathbb {Q} }$. Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice guarantees the existence of a basis of this vector space: there exists a set B of real numbers such that every real number can be written uniquely as a finite linear combination of elements of this set, using rational coefficients only, and such that no element of B is a rational linear combination of the others. However, this existence theorem is purely theoretical, as such a base has never been explicitly described.

The well-ordering theorem implies that the real numbers can be well-ordered if the axiom of choice is assumed: there exists a total order on ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$ with the property that every non-empty subset of ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$ has a least element in this ordering. (The standard ordering ≤ of the real numbers is not a well-ordering since e.g. an open interval does not contain a least element in this ordering.) Again, the existence of such a well-ordering is purely theoretical, as it has not been explicitly described. If V=L is assumed in addition to the axioms of ZF, a well ordering of the real numbers can be shown to be explicitly definable by a formula. [14]

A real number may be either computable or uncomputable; either algorithmically random or not; and either arithmetically random or not.

## Applications and connections to other areas

### Real numbers and logic

The real numbers are most often formalized using the Zermelo–Fraenkel axiomatization of set theory, but some mathematicians study the real numbers with other logical foundations of mathematics. In particular, the real numbers are also studied in reverse mathematics and in constructive mathematics. [15]

The hyperreal numbers as developed by Edwin Hewitt, Abraham Robinson and others extend the set of the real numbers by introducing infinitesimal and infinite numbers, allowing for building infinitesimal calculus in a way closer to the original intuitions of Leibniz, Euler, Cauchy and others.

Edward Nelson's internal set theory enriches the Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory syntactically by introducing a unary predicate "standard". In this approach, infinitesimals are (non-"standard") elements of the set of the real numbers (rather than being elements of an extension thereof, as in Robinson's theory).

The continuum hypothesis posits that the cardinality of the set of the real numbers is ${\displaystyle \aleph _{1}}$; i.e. the smallest infinite cardinal number after ${\displaystyle \aleph _{0}}$, the cardinality of the integers. Paul Cohen proved in 1963 that it is an axiom independent of the other axioms of set theory; that is: one may choose either the continuum hypothesis or its negation as an axiom of set theory, without contradiction.

### In physics

In the physical sciences, most physical constants such as the universal gravitational constant, and physical variables, such as position, mass, speed, and electric charge, are modeled using real numbers. In fact, the fundamental physical theories such as classical mechanics, electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, general relativity and the standard model are described using mathematical structures, typically smooth manifolds or Hilbert spaces, that are based on the real numbers, although actual measurements of physical quantities are of finite accuracy and precision.

Physicists have occasionally suggested that a more fundamental theory would replace the real numbers with quantities that do not form a continuum, but such proposals remain speculative. [16]

### In computation

With some exceptions, most calculators do not operate on real numbers. Instead, they work with finite-precision approximations called floating-point numbers. In fact, most scientific computation uses floating-point arithmetic. Real numbers satisfy the usual rules of arithmetic, but floating-point numbers do not.

Computers cannot directly store arbitrary real numbers with infinitely many digits. The achievable precision is limited by the number of bits allocated to store a number, whether as floating-point numbers or arbitrary-precision numbers. However, computer algebra systems can operate on irrational quantities exactly by manipulating formulas for them (such as ${\displaystyle {\sqrt {2}},}$${\displaystyle \arcsin(2/23),}$ or ${\displaystyle \textstyle \int _{0}^{1}x^{x}\,dx}$) rather than their rational or decimal approximation. [17] It is not in general possible to determine whether two such expressions are equal (the constant problem).

A real number is called computable if there exists an algorithm that yields its digits. Because there are only countably many algorithms, [18] but an uncountable number of reals, almost all real numbers fail to be computable. Moreover, the equality of two computable numbers is an undecidable problem. Some constructivists accept the existence of only those reals that are computable. The set of definable numbers is broader, but still only countable.

### "Reals" in set theory

In set theory, specifically descriptive set theory, the Baire space is used as a surrogate for the real numbers since the latter have some topological properties (connectedness) that are a technical inconvenience. Elements of Baire space are referred to as "reals".

## Vocabulary and notation

Mathematicians use the symbol R, or, alternatively, ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$, the letter "R" in blackboard bold (encoded in Unicode as U+211DDOUBLE-STRUCK CAPITAL R (HTML &#8477; ·&reals;, &Ropf;)), to represent the set of all real numbers. As this set is naturally endowed with the structure of a field, the expression field of real numbers is frequently used when its algebraic properties are under consideration.

The sets of positive real numbers and negative real numbers are often noted ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} ^{+}}$ and ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} ^{-}}$, [19] respectively; ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} _{+}}$ and ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} _{-}}$ are also used. [20] The non-negative real numbers can be noted ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} _{\geq 0}}$ but one often sees this set noted ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} ^{+}\cup \{0\}.}$ [19] In French mathematics, the positive real numbers and negative real numbers commonly include zero, and these sets are noted respectively ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R_{+}} }$ and ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R_{-}} .}$ [20] In this understanding, the respective sets without zero are called strictly positive real numbers and strictly negative real numbers, and are noted ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} _{+}*}$ and ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} _{-}*.}$ [20]

The notation ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} ^{n}}$ refers to the Cartesian product of n copies of ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$, which is an n-dimensional vector space over the field of the real numbers; this vector space may be identified to the n-dimensional space of Euclidean geometry as soon as a coordinate system has been chosen in the latter. For example, a value from ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} ^{3}}$ consists of a tuple of three real numbers and specifies the coordinates of a point in 3‑dimensional space.

In mathematics, real is used as an adjective, meaning that the underlying field is the field of the real numbers (or the real field). For example, real matrix , real polynomial and real Lie algebra . The word is also used as a noun, meaning a real number (as in "the set of all reals").

## Generalizations and extensions

The real numbers can be generalized and extended in several different directions:

## Notes

1. More precisely, given two complete totally ordered fields, there is a unique isomorphism between them. This implies that the identity is the unique field automorphism of the reals that is compatible with the ordering.

## Related Research Articles

In mathematics, a Cauchy sequence, named after Augustin-Louis Cauchy, is a sequence whose elements become arbitrarily close to each other as the sequence progresses. More precisely, given any small positive distance, all but a finite number of elements of the sequence are less than that given distance from each other.

In mathematical analysis, a metric space M is called complete if every Cauchy sequence of points in M has a limit that is also in M.

A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can be represented by symbols, called numerals; for example, "5" is a numeral that represents the number five. As only a relatively small number of symbols can be memorized, basic numerals are commonly organized in a numeral system, which is an organized way to represent any number. The most common numeral system is the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, which allows for the representation of any number using a combination of ten fundamental numeric symbols, called digits. In addition to their use in counting and measuring, numerals are often used for labels, for ordering, and for codes. In common usage, a numeral is not clearly distinguished from the number that it represents.

In mathematics, a sequence is an enumerated collection of objects in which repetitions are allowed and order matters. Like a set, it contains members. The number of elements is called the length of the sequence. Unlike a set, the same elements can appear multiple times at different positions in a sequence, and unlike a set, the order does matter. Formally, a sequence can be defined as a function whose domain is either the set of the natural numbers, or the set of the first n natural numbers. Sequences are one type of indexed families as an indexed family is defined as a function which domain is called the index set, and the elements of the index set are the indices for the elements of the function image.

In mathematics, Dedekind cuts, named after German mathematician Richard Dedekind but previously considered by Joseph Bertrand, are а method of construction of the real numbers from the rational numbers. A Dedekind cut is a partition of the rational numbers into two sets A and B, such that all elements of A are less than all elements of B, and A contains no greatest element. The set B may or may not have a smallest element among the rationals. If B has a smallest element among the rationals, the cut corresponds to that rational. Otherwise, that cut defines a unique irrational number which, loosely speaking, fills the "gap" between A and B. In other words, A contains every rational number less than the cut, and B contains every rational number greater than or equal to the cut. An irrational cut is equated to an irrational number which is in neither set. Every real number, rational or not, is equated to one and only one cut of rationals.

In mathematics, the p-adic number system for any prime number p extends the ordinary arithmetic of the rational numbers in a different way from the extension of the rational number system to the real and complex number systems. The extension is achieved by an alternative interpretation of the concept of "closeness" or absolute value. In particular, two p-adic numbers are considered to be close when their difference is divisible by a high power of p: the higher the power, the closer they are. This property enables p-adic numbers to encode congruence information in a way that turns out to have powerful applications in number theory – including, for example, in the famous proof of Fermat's Last Theorem by Andrew Wiles.

In mathematics, infinitesimals or infinitesimal numbers are quantities that are closer to zero than any standard real number, but are not zero. They do not exist in the standard real number system, but do exist in many other number systems, such as the surreal numbers and hyperreal numbers, which can be thought of as the real numbers augmented with a system of infinitesimal quantities, as well as infinite quantities which are the reciprocals of the infinitesimals.

In abstract algebra and analysis, the Archimedean property, named after the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse, is a property held by some algebraic structures, such as ordered or normed groups, and fields. The property, typically construed, states that given two positive numbers x and y, there is an integer n so that nx > y. It also means that the set of natural numbers is not bounded above. Roughly speaking, it is the property of having no infinitely large or infinitely small elements. It was Otto Stolz who gave the axiom of Archimedes its name because it appears as Axiom V of Archimedes’ On the Sphere and Cylinder.

In mathematics, there are several ways of defining the real number system as an ordered field. The synthetic approach gives a list of axioms for the real numbers as a complete ordered field. Under the usual axioms of set theory, one can show that these axioms are categorical, in the sense that there is a model for the axioms, and any two such models are isomorphic. Any one of these models must be explicitly constructed, and most of these models are built using the basic properties of the rational number system as an ordered field.

In algebra, a valuation is a function on a field that provides a measure of size or multiplicity of elements of the field. It generalizes to commutative algebra the notion of size inherent in consideration of the degree of a pole or multiplicity of a zero in complex analysis, the degree of divisibility of a number by a prime number in number theory, and the geometrical concept of contact between two algebraic or analytic varieties in algebraic geometry. A field with a valuation on it is called a valued field.

In mathematics, the ring of integers of an algebraic number field K is the ring of all integral elements contained in K. An integral element is a root of a monic polynomial with integer coefficients, xn + cn−1xn−1 + ... + c0. This ring is often denoted by OK or . Since any integer belongs to K and is an integral element of K, the ring Z is always a subring of OK.

In model theory, a transfer principle states that all statements of some language that are true for some structure are true for another structure. One of the first examples was the Lefschetz principle, which states that any sentence in the first-order language of fields that is true for the complex numbers is also true for any algebraically closed field of characteristic 0.

In mathematics, a real closed field is a field F that has the same first-order properties as the field of real numbers. Some examples are the field of real numbers, the field of real algebraic numbers, and the field of hyperreal numbers.

In mathematics, a partial order or total order < on a set is said to be dense if, for all and in for which , there is a in such that . That is, for any two elements, one less than the other, there is another element between them. For total orders we can say this more simply as "for any two distinct elements, there is another element between them", since totality implies that two distinct elements are related by , but this is false in general for partial orders because distinct elements can be incomparable.

In mathematics, a rational number is a number that can be expressed as the quotient or fraction p/q of two integers, a numerator p and a non-zero denominator q. For example, −3/7 is a rational number, as is every integer. The set of all rational numbers, also referred to as "the rationals", the field of rationals or the field of rational numbers is usually denoted by a boldface Q ; it was thus denoted in 1895 by Giuseppe Peano after quoziente, Italian for "quotient".

In mathematics, the irrational numbers are all the real numbers which are not rational numbers. That is, irrational numbers cannot be expressed as the ratio of two integers. When the ratio of lengths of two line segments is an irrational number, the line segments are also described as being incommensurable, meaning that they share no "measure" in common, that is, there is no length, no matter how short, that could be used to express the lengths of both of the two given segments as integer multiples of itself.

In mathematics, the Levi-Civita field, named after Tullio Levi-Civita, is a non-Archimedean ordered field; i.e., a system of numbers containing infinite and infinitesimal quantities. Each member can be constructed as a formal series of the form

In mathematics, an algebraic number field is an extension field of the field of rational numbers such that the field extension has finite degree . Thus is a field that contains and has finite dimension when considered as a vector space over .

Intuitively, completeness implies that there are not any “gaps” or “missing points” in the real number line. This contrasts with the rational numbers, whose corresponding number line has a “gap” at each irrational value. In the decimal number system, completeness is equivalent to the statement that any infinite string of decimal digits is actually a decimal representation for some real number.

In mathematics, a non-Archimedean ordered field is an ordered field that does not satisfy the Archimedean property. Examples are the Levi-Civita field, the hyperreal numbers, the surreal numbers, the Dehn field, and the field of rational functions with real coefficients with a suitable order.

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