Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2020 ib Paper 2 2E Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
Write . The zero and constant-one polynomials give and . Also,so is closed under finite intersections. Every nonzero one-variable complex polynomial has only finitely many roots, and every finite subset is the zero set of . Consequently is exactly the cofinite topology: its open sets are the empty set and the complements of finite sets. An arbitrary union of such sets is again empty or has finite complement, so is a topology.
The product topology on is the topology with basisThe proposed complement need not be open. TakeThen is the diagonal. If its complement were open, a point such as would have a basic neighbourhood contained in that complement. But and are nonempty cofinite subsets of , so . For , the point belongs both to and to the diagonal, a contradiction. Hence
T1 space 2026-10-06
A topological space is T1 when every point is a closed point. Equivalently, for distinct there is an open set containing but not , and an open set containing but not . These open sets need not be disjoint. Every Hausdorff space is T1, but an infinite set with its cofinite topology is T1 without being Hausdorff.