Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-analytic-topology-and-axiomatic-set-theory-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2009/a/3/iii/solution

A Hausdorff compactification of is an embedding into a compact Hausdorff space with dense image. The complement is the remainder; a one-point or two-point compactification has a remainder of that cardinality.
For one point, take the unit circle and
The angle runs over , so this is a homeomorphism onto the circle with removed. That image is dense, and the circle is compact Hausdorff. For two points, take and . This is a homeomorphism onto its dense open interval, leaving exactly the two endpoints. Therefore both required compactifications exist; in the first the positive and negative ends meet, whereas in the second they remain distinct.

New to topics? Read the docs here!