Math 142, Spring 2013.

HW2 Solutions
3. a) Let A X , with X a topological space. Then, A is the intersection of every closed set that contains A, A= F
A F F closed in X

Thus, as this is an arbitrary intersection of closed sets it must be a closed set (by the dening properties of a topology). b) We will show that A is contained in every other closed set that contains A: let F A be closed. Then, F appears in in the above intersection as an intersectand (?). As F F = A,
F A F closed

and F was an arbitrary closed set in X containing A, the result follows. c) Suppose that A is closed. Then, as A A we see that A appears as an intersectand in the above denition of A. Also, note that an intersection of sets containing A must itself contain A: indeed, if Ci X , for i I with I some indexing set, and Ci A, for every i I , then a A = a Ci , for each i I . Hence, a A = a i Ci . Hence, we have AA= F A = A = A.
A F F closed

Now assume that A = A. We have seen in a) that A is closed in X , so that A = A must be closed in X also. 5. The diagonal map is the map : X X X ; x (x , x ). Lets denote = (X ), by abuse of notation. Suppose that X is Hausdor: this means that for any x1 = x2 X , we can nd U1 , U2 X open, such that U1 x1 , U2 x2 and U1 U2 = . To show that X X is closed it suces to show that X X is open. Let (x1 , x2 ) X X , so that x1 = x2 (think of the denition of ). Let U1 x1 , U2 x2 be open sets in X as above. Then, (x1 , x2 ) U1 U2 , with U1 U2 is (a basic) open set in X X . Moreover, suppose that (y , y ) U1 U2 , for some y X . Then, y U1 and y U2 so that y U1 U2 = , which is absurd. Hence, (U1 U2 ) = , so that (x1 , x2 ) is an interior point of X X . As (x1 , x2 ) was arbitrary we have that X X is open in X X , so that is closed in X X . Suppose that is closed in X X . Thus, X X is open in X X . Let x1 = x2 X . Then, (x1 , x2 ) / so that we can nd a (basic) open set U1 U2 X X with (x1 , x2 ) U1 U2 . Hence, x1 U1 and x2 U2 . Moreover, suppose that y U1 U2 . Then, (y , y ) U1 U2 and (U1 U2 ) = , which is absurd. Hence, U1 U2 = and, as x1 , x2 were arbitrary, distinct elements of X , we have that X is Hausdor. 9. A ridiculously straightforward example is X = {}, a one point set. Then, X X = {(, )} is also a one point set. There is precisely one topology on a one point set, the trivial topology, 1

and there exists exactly one function between any pair of one point sets (in fact, there is exactly one function from any set to a one point set); namely f : X X X ; (, ) . Hence, f must necessarily be a homeomorphism as it is obviously bijective, with inverse g : X X X ; (, ), and each of these functions is continuous with respect to the trivial topology on X , X X . Note: this is the only example to take with X nite and nonempty: if > |X | > 1 then |X X | = |X |2 > |X |, and so there cannot exist a bijective function (therefore, denitely not a bicontinuous function) between X and X X . For countably innite sets X we can nd a bijection f : X X X - use the same counting argument that is used to show that Q is countable - and if we take the trivial topology on X then the product topology on X X is the trivial topology. Then, the bijection f is bicontinuous. For arbitrary innite sets we use the following fact: if X is innite, then X X and X have the same cardinality; although this may not be well-known. This means that we can nd a bijection between X X and X and, using the trivial topology again, we can assume this bijection is bicontinuous.