Sigma Additivity - Additive (or Finitely Additive) Set Functions

Additive (or Finitely Additive) Set Functions

Let be a function defined on an algebra of sets with values in (see the extended real number line). The function is called additive, or finitely additive, if, whenever A and B are disjoint sets in one has

(A consequence of this is that an additive function cannot take both −∞ and +∞ as values, for the expression ∞ − ∞ is undefined.)

One can prove by mathematical induction that an additive function satisfies

for any disjoint sets in .

Read more about this topic:  Sigma Additivity

Famous quotes containing the words set and/or functions:

    There is nothing less to our credit than our neglect of the foreigner and his children, unless it be the arrogance most of us betray when we set out to “americanize” him.
    Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)

    If photography is allowed to stand in for art in some of its functions it will soon supplant or corrupt it completely thanks to the natural support it will find in the stupidity of the multitude. It must return to its real task, which is to be the servant of the sciences and the arts, but the very humble servant, like printing and shorthand which have neither created nor supplanted literature.
    Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)