Measure theory

In mathematics, more specifically in measure theory, a measure on a set is a systematic way to assign to each suitable subset a number, intuitively interpreted as the size of the subset. In this sense, a measure is a generalization of the concepts of length, area and volume. A particularly important example is the Lebesgue measure on a Euclidean space, which assigns the conventional length, area and volume of Euclidean geometry to suitable subsets of Rⁿ, n=1,2,3,.... For instance, the Lebesgue measure of [0,1] in the real numbers is its length in the non-formal sense of the word, specifically 1.

To qualify as a measure (see Definition below), a function that assigns a non-negative real number or infinity to a set's subsets must satisfy a few conditions. One important condition is countable additivity. This condition states that the size of the union of a sequence of disjoint subsets is equal to the sum of the sizes of the subsets. However, it is in general impossible to consistently associate a size to each subset of a given set and also satisfy the other axioms of a measure. This problem was resolved by defining measure only on a sub-collection of all subsets; the subsets on which the measure is to be defined are called measurable and they are required to form a sigma-algebra, meaning that unions, intersections and complements of sequences of measurable subsets are measurable. Non-measurable sets in a Euclidean space, on which the Lebesgue measure cannot be consistently defined, are necessarily complex to the point of incomprehensibility, in a sense badly mixed up with their complement; indeed, their existence is a non-trivial consequence of the axiom of choice.

Measure theory was developed in successive stages during the late 19th and early 20th century by Emile Borel, Henri Lebesgue, Johann Radon and Maurice Fréchet, among others. The main applications of measures are in the foundations of the Lebesgue integral, in Andrey Kolmogorov's axiomatisation of probability theory and in ergodic theory. In integration theory, specifying a measure allows one to define integrals on spaces more general than subsets of Euclidean space; moreover, integral with respect to the Lebesgue measure on Euclidean spaces is more general and has a richer theory than its predecessor, the Riemann integral. Probability theory considers measures that assign to the whole set the size 1, and considers measurable subsets to be events whose probability is given by the measure.

Vahid Damanafshan

Reference: Gigapedia