Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2014/ib/paper-1/12e/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 ib Paper 1 12E Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
A compact space is one for which every open cover has a finite subcover. A Hausdorff space has disjoint open neighbourhoods of any two distinct points.
Let be a compact subspace of a Hausdorff space , and let . For each , choose disjoint open neighbourhoods of and of . Finitely many cover . Their corresponding intersection is an open neighbourhood of disjoint from . Thus is open, proving compact subspaces of a Hausdorff space are closed.
In particular, is closed as a subspace of compact . A closed subset of a compact space is compact: add its open complement to an open cover, apply compactness to the whole space, and discard that extra open set. Hence is compact.
In the cocountable topology on , two nonempty open sets always intersect. Their two countable complements have countable union, which cannot exhaust the uncountable real line. Therefore this space is not Hausdorff.
Every finite subset is compact in any topology. Conversely, from any infinite subset select distinct points and defineEach is cocountable and open; the sets increase and their union is all of . They therefore cover , but a finite selection is contained in some , which misses the infinitely many with . No finite subcover exists. Thus the compact subsets of a cocountable space are
New to topics? Read the docs here!