Infimum of an expression, and supremum of another expression

measure-theoryreal-analysissupremum-and-infimum

I know that the infimum of a subset (e.g., $\mathbb Z^+)$ of a partially ordered set (e.g., $\mathbb R$) is the greatest element in the subset that is less than or equal to all elements of the partially ordered set. So the infimum is the largest lower bound (and the supremum, similarly, is the smallest upper bound), but I'm having trouble recognizing what those quantities are in the following expressions (this is from a Measure Theory textbook):

Define $f:[0,1] \to \mathbb{R}$ by $f(x) = x^2$. Then
$$
U(f,[0,1])
\le \inf_{n \in \mathbb{Z}^+} \frac{2n^2+3n+1}{6n^2}
= \frac13
= \sup_{n \in \mathbb{Z}^+} \frac{2n^2-3n+1}{6n^2}
\le L(f,[0,1]).
$$

For example, the subset in question here appears to be $\mathbb Z^+)$, but what is the partially ordered set that it is a subset of? Is it $\mathbb R$? Is it $\mathbb Z$? Is it the complex set? What exactly does the following expression mean?
$$
\inf_{n \in \mathbf Z^+} \frac{2n^2 + 3n +1}{6n^2}
$$

Best Answer

The expression $$ \inf_{n \in \mathbf Z^+} \frac{2n^2 + 3n +1}{6n^2} $$ means to define a set $$ S = \left\{ \left. \frac{2n^2 + 3n +1}{6n^2} \right| n = 1,2,3\ldots \right\} $$ and compute $\inf S$.

It's not hard to see that $$ f(n) = \frac{2n^2 + 3n +1}{6n^2} = \frac13 + \frac{1}{2n} + \frac{1}{6n^2}, $$ so as $n$ grows, $f(n)$ slowly decreases towards $1/3$, with $$\lim_{n \to \infty} f(n) = \frac13.$$ Therefore, $\inf S = 1/3$.