Supremum norm ($\Vert f{\Vert }_{\infty }$)

The supremum norm of a bounded real- or complex-valued function on a set $X$ isFor a continuous function on a compact space, the extreme value theorem makes this supremum a maximum.

On a nondegenerate interval, point evaluation of the derivative is unbounded for the supremum norm on smooth functions. The functions $f_N(x)=\sin (N(x-x_0))$ have supremum norm at most one but $f_N^{\prime }(x_0)=N$. Adding the supremum norm of the derivative makes this evaluation a bounded linear functional.

For a function with bounded derivatives through order $k$, the derivative supremum norm is $|u{|}_{k;U}={\sum }_{j=0}^k{\sup }_U|D^{j}u|$, with any equivalent finite-dimensional norm for each derivative tensor. This is a classical $C^k$ norm; it is different from the Lp norm with exponent $k$.