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Questions tagged [general-topology]

Everything involving general topological spaces: generation and description of topologies; open and closed sets, neighborhoods; interior, closure; connectedness; compactness; separation axioms; bases; convergence: sequences, nets and filters; continuous functions; compactifications; function spaces; etc. Please use the more specific tags, (algebraic-topology), (differential-topology), (metric-spaces), (functional-analysis) whenever appropriate.

Everything involving general topological spaces: generation and description of topologies; open and closed sets, neighborhoods; interior, closure; connectedness; compactness; precompactness; separation axioms;countability axioms; bases; convergence: sequences, nets and filters; continuous functions; compactifications; function spaces; proximity; etc. Please use the more specific tags, , , , , whenever appropriate.

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Why did mathematicians introduce the concept of uniform continuity?

I have solved many problems regarding uniform continuity, but still I can't understand the following: Is there any practical application of this concept, or it is just a theoretical concept? Is there any wide application of this concept in any…
ramanujan
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A map is continuous if and only if for every set, the image of closure is contained in the closure of image

As a part of self study, I am trying to prove the following statement: Suppose $X$ and $Y$ are topological spaces and $f: X \rightarrow Y$ is a map. Then $f$ is continuous if and only if $f(\overline{A})\subseteq \overline{f(A)}$, where…
Holdsworth88
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What's going on with "compact implies sequentially compact"?

I've seen both counterexamples and proofs to "compact implies sequentially compact", and I'm not sure what's going on. Apparently there are compact spaces which are not sequentially compact; quick googling and wikipedia checks will turn up examples…
matt
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Simplicial Complex vs Delta Complex vs CW Complex

I am a little confused about what exactly are the difference(s) between simplicial complex, $\Delta$-complex, and CW Complex. What I roughly understand is that $\Delta$-complexes are generalisation of simplicial complexes (without the requirement…
yoyostein
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How many connected components does $\mathrm{GL}_n(\mathbb R)$ have?

I've noticed that $\mathrm{GL}_n(\mathbb R)$ is not a connected space, because if it were $\det(\mathrm{GL}_n(\mathbb R))$ (where $\det$ is the function ascribing to each $n\times n$ matrix its determinant) would be a connected space too, since…
Bartek
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"Naturally occurring" non-Hausdorff spaces?

It is not difficult for a beginning point-set topology student to cook up an example of a non-Hausdorff space; perhaps the simplest example is the line with two origins. It is impossible to separate the two origins with disjoint open sets. It is…
Eric
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Why Zariski topology?

Why in algebraic geometry we usually consider the Zariski topology on $\mathbb A^n_k$? Ultimately it seems a not very interesting topology, infact the open sets are very large and it doesn't satisfy the Hausdorff separation axiom. Ok the basis is…
Dubious
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Difference between complete and closed set

What is the difference between a complete metric space and a closed set? Can a set be closed but not complete?
ABC
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Compact sets are closed?

I feel really ignorant in asking this question but I am really just don't understand how a compact set can be considered closed. By definition of a compact set it means that given an open cover we can find a finite subcover the covers the…
InsigMath
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Let, $A\subset\mathbb{R}^2$. Show that $A$ can contain at most one point $p$ such that $A$ is isometric to $A \setminus \{p\}$.

A challenge problem from Sally's Fundamentals of Mathematical Analysis. Problem reads: Suppose $A$ is a subset of $\mathbb{R}^2$. Show that $A$ can contain at most one point $p$ such that $A$ is isometric to $A \setminus \{p\}$ with the usual…
David Bowman
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Set of continuity points of a real function

I have a question about subsets $$ A \subseteq \mathbb R $$ for which there exists a function $$f : \mathbb R \to \mathbb R$$ such that the set of continuity points of $f$ is $A$. Can I characterize this kind of sets? In a topological,measurable…
Daniel
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Differential forms on fuzzy manifolds

This post will take a bit to set up properly, but it is an easy read (and most likely easy to answer); in any event, please bear with me. Question In the usual setting of open subsets of $\mathbb{R}^n$, differential forms are defined as…
Isaac Sledge
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Under what conditions the quotient space of a manifold is a manifold?

There are many operations we can do with topological spaces that when we apply to topological manifolds gives us back topological manifolds. The disjoint union and the product are examples of that. Another common operation is to take the quotient by…
Gold
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Why is empty set an open set?

I thought about it for a long time, but I can't come up some good ideas. I think that empty set has no elements,how to use the definition of an open set to prove the proposition. The definition of an open set: a set S in n-dimensional space is…
python3
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How to prove every closed interval in R is compact?

Let $[a,b]\subseteq \mathbb R$. As we know, it is compact. This is a very important result. However, the proof for the result may be not familar to us. Here I want to collect the ways to prove $[a,b]$ is compact. Thanks for your help and any link.
Paul
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