Real Numbers

1 Introduction
In School algebra and arithmetic, we usually deal with two fundamental operations viz.addition and
multiplication and their inverse operations, subtraction and division respectively. These operations are
related to a certain class of ‘numbers’ which will be described more precisely in the following sections.The
basic differences between ‘elementary mathematics’ and ‘higher mathematics’, which begins at the college
level, is the introduction of the all important notation of limit which is very intimately related to the
intuitive idea of nearness or closeness and which cannot be described in terms of the operations of addition
and multiplication. The notion of limits comes to play in situations where one quantity depends on another
varying quantity and we have to know the behaviour of the first when the second is arbitrarily close to a
fixed given value. In order to illustrate our point in relation to a practical situation, consider the question
of determining the velocity of the planet Earth at a particular instant during its motion round the Sun
assuming the path of its motion around the sun and the position on this path at any instant is known.
We cannot determine the velocity of earth without taking resource to the notion of limit and indeed
we need the notion of limit even in defining the concept of ‘velocity’ of a moving object which is not
moving with uniform speed. The purpose of this illustration is simply to indicate that there are numerous
situations where the methods of elementary algebra prove quite inadequate for the purpose of solving even
formulating a problem, and we are forced to evolve new concepts and methods. The notion of limit is one
such concept.