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little-o (another Prime Pages' Glossary entries) |
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Glossary:
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Suppose f(x) and g(x) are real valued
functions defined for all x > x0
(where x0 is a fixed positive real).
We write
f(x) = o(g(x))if the limit as x approaches infinity of f(x)/g(x) is zero (that is, if eventually f(x)/g(x) becomes less than any given positive number). Examples: 10000x = o(x2), log(x) = o(x), and xn = o(ex). Notice that f(x) = o(g(x)) implies, and is stronger than, f(x) = O(g(x)). We often use the little-oh notation this way: f(x) = g(x) + o(h(x)).This intuitively means that the error in using g(x) to approximate f(x) is negligible in comparison to h(x). The little-oh notation was first used by E. Landau in 1909.
See Also: BigOh, SameOrderofMagnitude, AsymptoticallyEqual
Chris K. Caldwell © 1999-2013 (all rights reserved)
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