Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2001/iii/paper-6/3/solution

Let . Form the evaluation map into a product space
The cube is compact by Tychonoff's theorem and Hausdorff, so its closed subspace is a compact Hausdorff space. A completely regular Hausdorff space has enough continuous functions to separate points and closed sets. Consequently is injective and continuous, and is a topological embedding: given open, choose with and off ; the coordinate neighborhood pulls back to a neighborhood of inside . Identify with this dense embedded subspace. This constructs the Stone-Čech compactification.
Each extends as its coordinate function. Rescaling therefore extends every bounded real continuous function; real and imaginary parts extend bounded complex continuous functions. The extension is unique because is dense and the target is Hausdorff. Its supremum norm is unchanged by density, so restriction is an isometric isomorphism of normed spaces of Banach spaces
These are the space of continuous functions on a compact space and the space of bounded continuous functions, respectively.
More generally, embed a compact Hausdorff space in its own evaluation cube . This is an embedding by complete regularity, and its image is closed by compactness. For a continuous map , extend all the bounded coordinates to . The resulting continuous map into the cube takes its values in the closed copy of : it does so on the dense subset , and the inverse image of that closed copy is closed. Thus
Uniqueness again follows from density. This is the universal property of the Stone-Čech compactification. It implies uniqueness of the compactification up to a homeomorphism fixing , by extending the identity in both directions. Every Hausdorff compactification of is the image of under a continuous surjection fixing , since that image is compact and contains the dense copy of . A continuous map between completely regular Hausdorff spaces likewise extends uniquely to after composing with the embedding of ; these extensions preserve identities and composition. If is already compact, its dense copy is closed, so .
For discrete , every indicator , , is continuous. Its extension to takes only values , since this closed condition holds on the dense subset . Its one-set is precisely and is clopen: it is closed, and every neighborhood of one of its points meets by density and continuity. This also gives the discrete Stone-Čech compactifications are extremally disconnected property: for open , density implies , which is clopen.
For the requested separation, a compact Hausdorff space is normal, so Urysohn's lemma supplies with on and on . Put and
The preceding indicator argument makes both sets clopen. At a point of , the neighborhood has its dense -part inside , so the point lies in . At a point of , the neighborhood misses , so the point lies outside . We have proved the stronger clopen separation in discrete Stone-Čech compactifications conclusion
Finally take , the Stone-Čech compactification of the natural numbers. It is a compact Hausdorff space and is separable, because its embedded copy of is countable and dense. For every , the indicator extends to an element . For distinct , evaluating at an integer in their symmetric difference gives . There are uncountably many such indicators. A separable metric space cannot contain an uncountable family at pairwise distance one: disjoint balls of radius would require distinct members of a countable dense set. Hence is not separable, despite separability of .

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