Closure (topology) 2026-10-14
The closure of a subset of a topological space is the smallest closed set containing . Equivalently, it is the intersection of all closed sets containing , or the set of points whose every neighbourhood in meets . The notation makes the ambient topological space explicit. This definition works without a metric or any appeal to sequences. [ref]
https://math.mit.edu/~hrm/palestine/munkres-topology.pdf. James Munkres, Topology, closure and interior of a set
For in the usual real line, : every neighbourhood of meets , while a point outside has an open ball disjoint from . Passing to the closure adds the missing endpoint and retains all original points, including isolated points when present. In general, the closure is together with its limit points; its individual points are the adherent points of .
The closure turns an arbitrary subset into a closed set with no unnecessary added points. It satisfies and ; a subset is closed exactly when . In a metric space, exactly when some sequence of points of has limit of a sequence : choose its th point in . For a general topological space, keep the neighbourhood definition; sequences need not detect every point of the closure.
Limit point Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
A limit point of a subset of a topological space is a point whose every neighbourhood meets . Thus is a limit point of in the real line, even though . In contrast, an isolated point of belongs to its closure but is not a limit point of . This distinction separates limit points from the more inclusive notion of an adherent point.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 ib Paper 3 3E Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
The convention in this question counts a point whenever every open neighbourhood meets , without excluding the point itself. These are adherent points, whose set is the closure ; they differ from limit points under the convention that requires a different point of in each neighbourhood.
If is a closed set and , the open set is a neighbourhood of disjoint from . Thus every adherent point lies in . Conversely, if every adherent point lies in , each has an open neighbourhood disjoint from . Their union is , which is open. Hence is closed exactly when it contains all the points specified in the question.
The interior of a set and closure areThe neighbourhood description of the closure follows because failure to be adherent is equivalent to lying in an open set disjoint from .
For closure of a connected set, suppose were a separation into two nonempty relatively open sets. Their intersections with the connected subset would separate unless one intersection were empty. Say . Choose and an open set with and . Since , the set meets , contradicting . Thus the closure of a connected set is connected. The empty-set case holds directly.