In functional analysis and related areas of mathematics, a set in a topological vector space is called bounded or von Neumann bounded, if every neighborhood of the zero vector can be inflated to include the set. Conversely a set that is not bounded is called unbounded.
Bounded sets are a natural way to define a locally convex polar topologies on the vector spaces in a dual pair, as the polar of a bounded set is an absolutely convex and absorbing set. The concept was first introduced by John von Neumann and Andrey Kolmogorov in 1935.
Given a topological vector space (X,τ) over a field F, S is called bounded if for every neighborhood N of the zero vector there exists a scalar α such that
with
This is equivalent to the condition that S is absorbed by every neighborhood of the zero vector, i.e., that for all neighborhoods N, there exists t such that
Bounded subsets of a topological vector space over the real or complex field can also be characterized by their sequences, for S is bounded in X if and only if for all sequences (cn) of scalars converging to 0 and all (similarly-indexed) countable subsets (xn) of S, the sequence of their products (cn xn) necessarily converges to zero in X.