Math 590 Homework #3 Friday 25 January 2019

Recommended reading: Munkres Section 12 & Section 18 (to the end of Example 2).

Roughly similar content:

Hatcher https://pi.math.cornell.edu/~hatcher/Top/TopNotes.pdf,
subsections “Topological Spaces”, “Basis for a Topology”, and “Continuity and Homeomorphisms”.

Warm-up questions
(These warm-up questions are optional, and won’t be graded.)
1. Let X be a set.
(a) Let T = {∅, X}. Prove that T is a topology on X. It is called the indiscrete topology.
(b) Show that B = {X} is a basis for the indiscrete topology on X.
(c) Let T be the collection of all subsets of X. Prove that T is a topology on X, called the discrete
topology.
n o
(d) Show that B = {x} x ∈ X is a basis for the discrete topology on X.
n o
2. Let X = {0, 1, 2}. Show that the collection of subsets ∅, X, {0, 1}, {1, 2} is not a topology on X.

3. Verify that the standard topology on R is in fact a topology.

4. Let X be a set and let p ∈ X. Prove that T = {∅} ∪ {U ⊆ X | p ∈ U } is a topology on X.
5. Find all possible topologies on the set X = {0, 1}.

6. Let X = {a, b, c, d} and let


T = ∅, {a}, {b}, {a, b}, {b, c}, {a, d}, {a, b, c}, {a, b, d}, {a, b, c, d} .

(a) Verify that T is a topology on X.

(b) Determine which of the following sets are bases for this topology.

(i) B = {∅, X} (iv) B = {{a}, {b}, {b, c}, {a, d}}

(ii) B = {{a}, {b}, {c}, {d}} (v) B = {{a}, {b}, {a, b, c}, {a, b, d}}
(iii) B = T (vi) B = {{a, b}, {b, c}, {a, d}}

7. Let (X, T ) be a topological space.

(a) Show by induction that the intersection of any finite collection of open sets is open.
(b) Explain why this argument does not apply to an infinite collection of open sets.
8. See Assignment Problem #4 for the definition of the cofinite and cocountable topologies on a set X.
(a) Suppose that X is a finite set. Show that the cofinite topology on X coincides with the discrete
topology on X. Show that this is not the case when X is infinite.
(b) Suppose that X is a countable set. Show that the cocountable topology coincides with the discrete
topology. Show that this is not the case when X is uncountable.
9. Let (X, T ) be a topological space. Verify that X and ∅ are always closed subsets of X.
10. (The openness criterion). Let X be a topological space, and let V ⊆ X. Show that, to prove that V
is open, it suffices to check the following: For every x ∈ V there is some set Ux ⊆ X containing x such
that Ux is open and Ux ⊆ V . (This criterion will be very useful!)

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Math 590 Homework #3 Friday 25 January 2019

11. (a) Let X be a topological space. Show that the (b) Let X and Y be topological spaces, and fix
identity map is continuous: y0 ∈ Y . Show that the constant map is con-
tinuous:
idX : X → X f :X→Y
idX (x) = x f (x) = y0

12. Prove the following result.

Proposition (Composition of continuous functions). Let X, Y , and Z be topological
spaces. If f : X → Y and g : Y → Z are continuous maps, then the composition map
g ◦ f : X → Z is continuous.
13. (a) Let X be a topological space with the discrete topology. Show that any function f : X → Y for
any topological space Y is necessarily continuous.
(b) Let Y be a topological space with the indiscrete topology. Show that any function f : X → Y for
any topological space X is necessarily continuous.
14. See Assignment Problem #5 for the definition of coarser and finer topologies.
(a) Let X be a set. Show that the indiscrete topology on X is coarser than any other topology on X.
(b) Let X be a set. Show that the discrete topology on X is finer than any other topology on X.
15. Give examples of two distinct topologies on the set {a, b, c} where one is finer than the other, and an
example of two topologies on the set {a, b, c} that are not comparable (in the sense of finer/coarser).
16. Let X be a set. Let T1 and T2 be two topologies on X. Show that the following statements are equivalent.
• T1 ⊆ T2
• The identity map idX : (X, T2 ) → (X, T1 ) is continuous
• The identity map idX : (X, T1 ) → (X, T2 ) is open
17. Let (X, T ) be a topological space.
(a) Show that T is a basis for T .
(b) Suppose that B is a basis for T . Show that any collection of open sets in X containing B is also a
basis for T .
18. (The basis criterion). Let (X, T ) be a topological space. Show that a collection B of open sets is a
basis and that B generates T if and only if it satisfies the following property: For every open set U ∈ T ,
and every x ∈ U , there exists some element B ∈ B such that x ∈ B and B ⊆ U .
19. Show that the following collections of sets are bases for topologies on R. For which of the pairs of
topologies associated to these bases are comparable (in terms of being finer/coarser)?

• B1 = {(a, b) | a, b ∈ R, a < b} • B3 = {(a, ∞) | a ∈ R}

• B2 = {[a, b) | a, b ∈ R, a < b} • B4 = {U | U ⊆ R, R \ U is finite}

Assignment questions
(Hand these questions in! Unless otherwise indicated, give a complete, rigorous justification for each solution.)
1. Let (an )n∈N be a sequence of real numbers. Recall the following definition from real analysis:
Definition (Convergence of sequences in R). A sequence (an )n∈N of real numbers con-
verges to a point a∞ ∈ R if, for each  > 0, there exists some N ∈ N so that |an − a∞ | <  for
all n ≥ N .

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Math 590 Homework #3 Friday 25 January 2019

Prove the following result.

Proposition (Equivalent definition of convergence in R). A sequence (an )n∈N of real
numbers converges to a∞ ∈ R if and only if it satisfies the following condition: for each open
set U ⊆ R containing a∞ , there is some N ∈ N so that an ∈ U for all n ≥ N .
Remark: This shows that, (like continuous functions), convergence of sequences can be characterized
entirely in terms of open sets. This concept will also make sense for abstract topological spaces.
2. (Unions and intersections of closed subsets). Consider the following definition.
Definition (Closed subsets of a topological space). Let (X, T ) be a topological space.
A subset C ⊆ X is called closed if its complement is open, that is, if X \ C is an element of T .
Sn
(a) Let C1 , C2 , . . . , Cn be a finite collection of closed sets. Show that their union i=1 Ci is closed.
(b) Show by example that the union of an arbitrary number of closed subsets need not be closed.
\
(c) Suppose that {Ci }i∈I is a collection of closed sets in X. Verify that Ci is closed.
i∈I

3. Prove the following.

Proposition (Equivalent definition of continuity). Let X and Y be topological spaces,
and let f : X → Y be a function. Then f is continuous if and only if it satisfies the following
condition: for every closed set C ⊆ Y , the preimage f −1 (C) ⊆ X is closed.
4. (The cofinite and cocountable topologies). Let X be a set.
(a) (The cofinite topology). Let Tcf be the collection of subsets of X

Tcf = {∅} ∪ {U ⊆ X | X \ U is a finite set}.

Verify that T is a topology on X. It is called the cofinite topology.

(b) (The cocountable topology). Let Tcc be the collection of subsets of X

Tcc = {∅} ∪ {U ⊆ X | X \ U is a countable set}.

It is called the cocountable topology. In a few sentences, explain how you could modify your argument
from part (a) to prove that Tcc is a topology.
5. (Coarser and finer topologies). Consider the following definitions.
Definition (Coarser topology; finer topology). Let X be a set. Let T1 and T2 be two
topologies on X. If T1 ⊆ T2 , then the topology T1 is said to be coarser than T2 , and the
topology T2 is said to be finer than the topology T1 .
Let (X, TX ) and (Y, TY ) be topological spaces. Let f : X → Y be a continuous function. Show that f
will still be continuous if we replace TX by any finer topology on X, or if we replace TY with any coarser
topology on Y .
6. An advantage of identifying a basis for a topology is that many topological statements can be reduced
to statements about the basis. As an example, prove the following result.
Proposition (Equivalent definition of continuity). Let (X, TX ) and (Y, TY ) be topolog-
ical spaces, and let BY be a basis for TY . Prove that a map f : X → Y is continuous if and
only if for every open set U ∈ BY , the preimage f −1 (U ) ⊆ X is open.
7. (a) Show that B = {(a, b) | a, b ∈ Q} is a basis and that it generates the standard topology on R.
(b) Show that C = {[a, b) | a, b ∈ Q} is a basis and that it generates a topology different from the lower
limit topology (which has basis {[a, b) | a, b ∈ R}).

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