Topology: Basic Facts

Peter Behr
November 26, 2007

Topology is one of the more abstract branches of mathematics, and the ideas contained in
it have little to do with the real world or our immediate experience. But as soon as this
becomes clear and you begin learning topology as a foreign language for formal thinking
about sets, a lot of interesting new ways of thinking open up.

Only recently has topology become codified rigorously and recognized as a discipline in its
own right. It mostly concerns itself with arbitrary sets which have a variety of topological
properties, and how these properties are preserved or changed by manipulating the sets. As
with many things, it begins with a definition depending on three elementary principles.

Definition 1. Let X be any set, and define a set of subsets of X, call it O(X), the set of
subsets which are open in X. Suppose that the following properties are satisfied:

1. ∅, X ∈ O

2. If {Ui }i∈I is anSarbitrary collection of subsets open in X (there may be infinitely many
of them), then i∈I Ui ∈ O (closure under arbitrary union)

3. If {Ui }i∈I is a finite collection of subsets open in X, then i∈I Ui ∈ O (closure under
T
finite intersection)

Then O(X) is called a topology on X, and the pair (X, O) is called a topological space.

From this we derive an important theorem. It will not be proved here, but it may be
instructive to do so sometime.

Theorem 2. A set A ⊂ X in a topological space X is open if for any x ∈ A we may find

some open set U for which U ⊂ A.

In many texts which introduce the topology of Rn , U is replaced with “an open ball” (which
is a well-defined idea once the Euclidean metric is applied), and this is given as the definition
of an open set, without ever referencing the three properties in the definition of a topological
space as axiomatic. These properties are instead later proved as theorems which result from
the preceding statement.

This is fine because by using this as a definition, we are saying that the only open sets
in Rn are precisely the empty set along with all arbitrary unions of open balls, all finite

1
intersections of open balls, and then any finite intersection or arbitrary unions of these sets,
which satisfies the definitions of a topological space. Because of this we say that open balls
are the subbasis for the canonical topology on Rn . But to avoid confusing the situation, we
will avoid talking about this matter further before we have mastered some of the most basic
topological ideas. The following definitions and statements should simply be memorized,
backwards and forwards.
Definition 3. A subset A ⊂ X a topological space is closed if its complement is open.
Definition 4. A point x is a limit point of a subset A ⊂ X a topological space if for any
open set U 3 x, A ∩ (U \ {x}) 6= ∅.
Definition 5. Given a subset A ⊂ X a topological space, the closure of A is the union of
A and the set of all its limit points, denoted A.
Theorem 6. A subset A ⊂ X a topological space is closed iff it contains all of its limit
points.
Theorem 7. Any finite subset of a topological space is closed.
Definition 8. Given a subset A ⊂ X a topologicalSspace, a class B = {Ui }i∈I of open
subsets of X is called an open cover for A if A ⊂ i∈I Ui . Any subset of an open cover
which is still a cover is called an open subcover.
Definition 9. A subset A ⊂ X a topological space is compact if any open cover of it has
some subcover.
Theorem 10. A subset E ∈ Rn is compact iff it is closed and bounded.
Theorem 11. A compact subset E ∈ R must contain its supremum and infimum.
Definition 12. A subset A ⊂ X a topological (or metric) space is sequentially compact
if any sequence in A has a convergent subsequence whose limit is in A.
Theorem 13. A subset E ∈ Rn is compact iff it is sequentially compact.
We note that not all compact spaces are sequentially compact! spaces which are

The last thing we’ll want to talk about here for now is the idea of openness (and correspond-
ingly, closedness) inside smaller sets. It is best to think about this in terms of the following
concept:
Definition 14. Let (X, O(X)) be a topological space and Y ⊂ X any subset. We define
O(Y ) = {U ∩ Y | U ∈ O}, and verifying that this is in fact a topology on Y , call Y a
subspace of X. We often then say that sets in O(Y ) are open in Y.
We then go on to say that a set B is closed in Y if Y \ B is open in Y . Whenever we begin
talking about relative openness and closedness, things can get somewhat confusing. To avoid
this, we will often emphasize when we talk about a set which is open in X by saying that it
is open in “the world,” since X is special as are overarching, all-containing superset.