The Concept of Infimum in Mathematics

A set of numbers can have a boundary it never actually touches. Think about this

sequence: 1, one-half, one-third, one-fourth, and so on,

forever. The biggest number, the maximum, is clearly 1. But what’s the smallest

number in that set? You can keep dividing, getting infinitely closer to zero, but you’ll never

actually hit it. So, the set has no minimum value. Instead,

mathematicians call this limit the "infimum," or the greatest lower bound. It’s the number

the set is squeezing towards but can never reach. It's a theoretical floor that none

of the numbers will ever stand on.