Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-analytic-topology-and-axiomatic-set-theory-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2009/a/1/ii/solution

Fix a horizontal line . The restriction of every member of to is continuous in its usual topology. Therefore every subbasic open set intersects in a usual open set, so the induced topology is no finer than the usual one. Conversely the first coordinate projection is continuous for the initial topology, and its inverse images induce every usual open set on . The two topologies on are equal. The second projection gives the identical argument for a vertical line.
Write . For every nonzero rational , the intersection of with is dense in that vertical line, since the nonzero rational numbers are dense in the real line. Hence . For each real , it follows that contains and is closed in that line. This dense subset forces the whole horizontal line into . Thus : is a countable dense subset. The two successive uses of line density are necessary; the initial topology is finer than the Euclidean topology, so Euclidean density alone would not suffice.

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