Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-topology-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2017/1/c/solution
Past exam of the topology course of the University of Oxford 2017 1 c Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-31
A subset is connected when it is a connected space in its subspace topology: there is no separation of a topological spaceinto two nonempty disjoint open subsets of . Equivalently, the only clopen sets of are and .
Since the given is not connected, choose such . Each is the complement of the other in , so both are also closed subsets of . They are compact by the closed subset of a compact space result. We now separate these two compact subsets by ambient open sets.
For each , part (b), applied to and , gives disjoint ambient open sets with and . Choose such that the cover , using its compactness. DefineThen , , and are disjoint open sets. Indeed a point of lies in some , whereas every point of lies in the corresponding . ConsequentlyThis proves the requested ambient separation, using the more general separation of disjoint compact subsets. The initially given relatively open sets need not themselves be open in ; the finite construction supplies ambient open neighbourhoods.
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