 Lp norm

An Lp norm measures the size of a measurable function by averaging a power of its absolute value with respect to a specified measure. For $1\le p<\infty$,when the integral is finite. The exponent $p$ controls how strongly large values influence the result. The Lp space identifies functions equal almost everywhere, so this becomes a norm on the corresponding equivalence classes. For $p=\infty$, use the essential supremum of $|f|$, as defined by the L-infinity norm. ^[ref].

For a two-coordinate vector $(3,4)$, treat the coordinates as a function on two inputs with counting measure. Then $\Vert (3,4){\Vert }_1=3+4=7$, $\Vert (3,4){\Vert }_2=\sqrt{9+16}=5$, and $\Vert (3,4){\Vert }_{\infty }=4$. The middle case is the Euclidean norm; the first adds the coordinate magnitudes, and the last takes their largest value. These are different answers to different questions about size, all satisfying the triangle inequality.

If instead each input has probability $1/2$, the same values give $\Vert f{\Vert }_1=3.5$ and $\Vert f{\Vert }_2=\sqrt{12.5}$, while $\Vert f{\Vert }_{\infty }=4$ remains unchanged. Thus the measure is not an optional label. On a probability space, the finite Lp norms are nondecreasing in $p$ whenever they are finite, by Hölder's inequality; the unnormalized two-coordinate example above decreases instead. Statements comparing different exponents must specify their measure convention.

Why are these sizes useful? If $e$ is an error function, its L1 norm measures aggregate absolute error, its L2 norm measures the square root of aggregate quadratic loss, and its L-infinity norm bounds error almost everywhere. Concentrating a large error on a set of small positive measure can give a modest finite Lp norm but a large L-infinity norm. The three-point example and diagram in L-infinity norm show this explicitly, including why a null set behaves differently from a rare event.