Encyclopedia > Ball (mathematics)

  Article Content

Ball (mathematics)

In mathematics, in a metric space, a ball is a set containing all points within a specified distance of a given point.

The set is often written as Br(p), meaning the ball of radius r centred on a point p. This is defined as:

Br(p) = { x | d(x,p) < r }
where d is the distance function or metric.

If the less-than symbol (<) is replaced by a less-than-or-equal-to (≤), the above definition becomes that of a closed ball. This is usually notated by adding an overscore[?] to the B.

If r = 1, then it is called a unit ball.

A set is bounded if it is contained in a ball.



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
242

... century - 4th century Decades: 190s 200s 210s 220s 230s - 240s - 250s 260s 270s 280s 290s Years: 237 238 239 240 241 - 242 - 243 244 245 246 247 Events Patriarch ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 37.4 ms