Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2017/ib/paper-3/3e/b/solution

If is Hausdorff, every pair has disjoint open neighborhoods and . The rectangle is an open neighborhood of disjoint from the diagonal. Hence every point of its complement is interior, so the diagonal is a closed set.
Conversely, if the diagonal is closed, its complement is open in the product topology. For , the rectangle-basis property gives open and with disjoint from the diagonal. If , then lies in that rectangle, a contradiction. Thus , giving the Hausdorff separation condition. Consequently
The argument includes spaces with zero or one point, for which both conditions hold.

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