February 6, 2006
Topology 640, Homework no. 1
(Due on Wednesday, February 15)
1. Let X be the set X = {1, 2, 3}. List all possible topologies on X. How many are
there?
2. Let X be an infinite set and p ∈ X some arbitrary element in X. Let TF,p be the
collection of subsets of X which either have finite complement or don’t contain the
point p. Show that TF,p is a topology on X (called the Fort topology).
3. Let X be an infinite set and consider the collection T of subsets of X defined as
T = {∅, All subsets U of X with infinite complement}
Is T a topology on X? Explain your answer.
4. Let (X, T ) be a topological space and let A ⊆ X be a subset of X. We say that
A is dense in X if for each non-empty U ∈ T the intersection A ∩ U is non-empty.
For example the set A = X is always dense in X. A topological space is said to be
separable if it has a countable dense subset.
(a) Show that a second countable1 topological space is automatically separable (the
converse is not true in general).
(b) Let TE be the Euclidean topology on R. Find a countable subset A ⊂ R which is
dense in (R, TE ) (you must show that your set A is in fact dense)2.
5. Show that a function f : Rn → R is continuous if and only if for every closed set
A ⊆ R the preimage B = f −1 (A) is a closed subset of Rn .
6. This exercise shows that a partial converse of problem 4 is true. Namely, let (X, d) be
a metric space and let Td be the metric topology induced by d. Show that if (X, Td )
is separable then it is also second countable.
February 22, 2006
Solutions
1. There are 29 topologies on a set with 3 elements.
1Recall that a topological space (X, T ) is called second countable if it has a countable basis B.
2Notice that the existence of a countable dense set A follows from part (a) of the exercise (remember we
showed in class that (Rn , TE ) is second countable for all n ≥ 1). In fact, the solution to (a) along with having
a concrete countable basis B for TE provides a recipe for finding the set A
2
2. We need to check the 3 conditions from the definition of a topology.
(a) ∅ ∈ TF,p since p ∈ / ∅ and X ∈ TF,p since the complement of X is finite.
(b) Let Ui ∈ TF,p for i ∈ I. We need to show that the union U = ∪i∈I Ui is also in
TF,p . There are two cases to consider:
(i) If p ∈
/ Ui for all i ∈ I then clearly p ∈/ U and so U ∈ TF,p .
(ii) If p ∈ Uj for at least one index j ∈ I then X − Uj is finite. But X − U ⊂
X − Uj and a subset of a finite set is itself finite. Therefore U ∈ TF,p .
(c) Given sets V1 , ..., Vn ∈ TF,p , let V = ∩ni=1 Vi . We need to show that V ∈ TF,p .
There are again two cases to distinguish:
(i) If p ∈
/ Vj for some j in {1, ..., n} then clearly p ∈
/ V and so V ∈ TF,p .
(ii) If p ∈ Vi for all i = 1, ..., n then all the sets X − Vi are finite. But by
DeMorgan’s laws we know that X − V = ∪ni=1 (X − Vi ). Since all the sets
on the righthand side of this equality are finite, the lefthand side is also
finite. Thus V ∈ TF,p .
3. This is not a topology since X itself has finite complement and is not contained in T .
4. (a) Let B = {U1 , U2 , ...} be a countable basis for X. Pick an arbitrary point xi ∈ Ui
for all i = 1, 2, .... Define A to be
A = {x1 , x2 , ...}
Clearly A is countable since it has the same cardinality as B. To show that A is
dense, pick any nonempty open set U . Since B is a basis, we can find a Uj ∈ B
such that Uj ⊆ U . But then xj ∈ A ∩ U showing that A ∩ U 6= ∅.
(b) Recall that the following is a countable basis for (R, TE ):
B = {Bp (r) | p, r ∈ Q, r > 0}
where as usual Bp (r) is the open ball centered at p and with radius r. Using
part (a) we can form A by picking a single element from each set in B. There
are many choices here, all equally valid. A natural choice it to choose the point p
itself from Bp (r). Since p is allowed to range through Q we see that A = Q. This
shows that the rational numbers are dense in R (when we consider the Euclidean
topology on R but not necessarily with other topologies).
5. =⇒ Assume that f : Rn → R is continuous. Let B ⊆ R be closed set and define A
to be f −1 (B). An easy check reveals that
A = Rn − f −1 (R − B)
Since f is continuous, the set f −1 (R − B) is an open set (since R − B is an open set)
and so A is closed.
⇐= Assume that f −1 (B) is closed for each closed subset B of R. Let V ⊆ R be any
open set and define U to be f −1 (V ). Proceeding as in the previous part one checks
that
U = Rn − f −1 (R − V )
Since V is open, R − V is closed. Thus f −1 (R − V ) is also closed and so U is open.
This means that f is continuous.
6. Let A be a dense countable set in X and define B as
B = {Bx (r) | x ∈ A, r ∈ Q, r > 0}
3
where Bx (r) = {y ∈ X | d(x, y) < r}. Since A and Q are countable then so is B.
We claim that B is a basis for the metric topology Td . We start proving this by first
showing that B is the basis of some topology.
Claim 1: B is the basis of some topology.
Proof. (Of claim 1) We check that the two conditions of being a basis are met.
(a) Given any point p ∈ X we need to show that there is an element U ∈ B such that
p ∈ U . Consider the open set Bp (1). This is an open set and so the intersection
A ∩ Bx (1) 6= ∅. Pick an element a ∈ A ∩ Bx (1). Then d(a, p) < 1 and so
p ∈ Ba (1) ∈ B.
(b) Given two sets U1 , U2 ∈ B and a point p ∈ U1 ∩ U2 we need to show that there is a
third set U3 ∈ B such that p ∈ U3 ⊆ U1 ∩ U2 . Since U1 ∩ U2 is an open set, we can
find an ε > 0 such that Bp (2ε) ⊆ U1 ∩ U2 . But clearly Bp (ε) ⊂ Bp (2ε) ⊆ U1 ∩ U2 .
Since Bp (ε) is a nonempty open set, we can find an element a ∈ A ∩ Bp (ε). Let
ρ be any rational number with d(p, a) < ρ < ε and let U3 be the set Ba (ρ) ∈ B.
Since d(p, a) < ρ we see that p ∈ U3 . But on the other hand, given any point
y ∈ U3 , by the triangle inequality for d we get
d(y, x) ≤ d(y, a) + d(a, x) < ρ + ε < 2ε
Therefore y ∈ Bx (2ε) ⊂ U1 ∩ U2 . Since this is true for all y ∈ U3 we see that
indeed U3 ⊆ U1 ∩ U2 . This completes the proof of claim 1.
Claim 2: The topology generated by B is the metric topology Td .
Proof. (Of claim 2) Let TB be the topology generated by B. Since B ⊆ Td it follows
that TB ⊆ Td . It remains to see the converse. For that purpose, pick any open set
U ∈ Td . We need to show that U also belongs to TB . In other words, we need to show
that U is a union of sets belonging to B.
Let p ∈ U be any point. Since U is open we can find an ε > 0 so that Bp (2ε) ⊆ U .
Pick a point a ∈ A ∩ Bp (ε) and let Up = Ba (ε). Since d(a, p) < ε we see that p ∈ Up .
Given any other element y ∈ Up , using the triangle inequality again we find that
d(y, p) ≤ d(y, a) + d(a, p) < ε + ε = 2ε
showing that y ∈ Bx (2ε) ⊆ U . Thus Up ⊆ U . Doing this procedure for each p ∈ U
we get [
U= Up Up ∈ B
p∈U
showing that U ∈ TB . This completes the proof of claim 2.
In conclusion, the claims 1 and 2 show that B is a countable basis for Td and so
(X, Td ) is a second countable topological space.
