Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2004/ib/paper-2/15e/i/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2004 ib Paper 2 15E i Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
For a sequence , let be its prefix cylinder set, consisting of sequences agreeing with in the first coordinates. The specified collection consists exactly of unions of such cylinder sets.
The empty set meets the defining condition vacuously, and meets it because every cylinder set is contained in . For a union , a point lies in one and has a prefix cylinder set contained in that set, hence contained in the union. For a finite intersection, a point has a cylinder neighbourhood in every constituent. Taking the largest of the finitely many prefix lengths gives one cylinder set contained in all of them. Therefore the collection contains the empty and whole sets, is closed under arbitrary unions and finite intersections, and is a topology on , the prefix topology of Cantor space.
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