In mathematics, a negligible set is a set that is small enough that it can be ignored for some purpose. As common examples, finite sets can be ignored when studying the limit of a sequence, and null sets can be ignored when studying the integral of a measurable function.
Negligible sets define several useful concepts that can be applied in various situations, such as truth almost everywhere. In order for these to work, it is generally only necessary that the negligible sets form an ideal; that is, that the empty set be negligible, the union of two negligible sets be negligible, and any subset of a negligible set be negligible. For some purposes, we also need this ideal to be a sigma-ideal, so that countable unions of negligible sets are also negligible. If I and J are both ideals of subsets of the same set X, then one may speak of I-negligible and J-negligible subsets.
The opposite of a negligible set is a generic property, which has various forms.
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“Well, most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves to some of these communities of opinion. This conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real four; so that every word they say chagrins us and we know not where to set them right.”
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