Encyclopedia > Almost

  Article Content

Almost

In mathematics, especially in set theory, when dealing with sets of infinite size, the term almost or nearly is used to mean all the elements except for finitely many.

In other words, an infinite set S that is a subset of another infinite set L, is almost L if the subtracted set L\S is of finite size.

This is conceptually similar to the Almost everywhere concept of Measure theory.

Examples:

  • The set <math> S = \{ n \in \mathbf{N} | n \ge k \} </math> is almost N for any k in N, because only finitely many natural numbers are less than k.
  • The set of prime numbers is not almost N because there are infinitely many natural numbers that are not prime numbers.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Wheatley Heights, New York

... a total population of 5,013. Geography Wheatley Heights is located at 40°45'43" North, 73°22'1" West (40.761998, -73.366895)1. According to the United Stat ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 40.2 ms