Let and be the quotient maps. The continuous map
is a homeomorphism onto the upper hemisphere; its inverse function is the restriction of the projection map . Every antipodal pair on meets that hemisphere. Moreover, two points of this hemisphere are antipodal only if both lie on the equator. Thus
By the universal property of the quotient topology, induces a continuous bijection
To justify continuity of the inverse function, the source is compact, being a continuous image of a compact space ; the Heine-Borel theorem gives compactness of . The target is Hausdorff, as follows. For distinct equivalence classes , put
In , take the union of the two relative open balls of radius about , and similarly take about . Every distance between their respective centres is at least , so the triangle inequality gives . These open sets contain entire antipodal pairs, hence and similarly for . The quotient topology therefore makes and disjoint open neighbourhoods of the two classes.
Use the equivalence relation induced by a function:
Equality in supplies reflexivity, symmetry, and transitivity, so this is an equivalence relation. Define by . It is well-defined; it is injective by the definition of and surjective because is surjective.
For an open set ,
is open by continuity of . The quotient topology therefore makes open, proving that is continuous.
The continuous image of a compact space theorem applied to makes compact. If is closed in , it is compact, and is compact in the Hausdorff space , hence closed. Thus is a closed map. Its inverse function is continuous, since its preimage of is precisely . We have proved that is a homeomorphism, including the compact-to-Hausdorff continuous bijection theorem used in the argument.
Use the same square grid with four centre-based triangles per small square, but identify boundary points by
This gives the real projective plane. To see the model explicitly, a radial homeomorphism from the square, centred at , to the closed disc carries the boundary involution to the antipodal map. The map from that disc to the projective plane
is continuous and surjective: every one-dimensional vector subspace of has a unit vector representative in the closed upper hemisphere. Its only identifications are antipodal boundary points. The compact-to-Hausdorff continuous bijection theorem therefore identifies this disc quotient space with .
The square triangulation descends to an abstract simplicial complex . Small-square centres remain distinct interior vertices; each triangle has one centre and two adjacent grid vertices. Boundary pairings identify whole grid edges, while preserving distinct vertices in each triangle, so this is a finite triangulation of the real projective plane. Its counts are vertices, edges and triangles, giving Euler characteristic one.
Choose to be the interior triangle with vertices , and . Removing its relative interior and cutting from to gives the same nine-sided cut disc as before. Parametrize it by a convex polygon, transporting the boundary identifications. Its boundary word is now
The boundary involution pairs the two sides and the two sides in matching traversal directions; the pair restores the slit. Leave unpaired. The quotient space is
the real projective plane with an open disc removed. In particular it is a compact connected surface with boundary consisting of one three-edge circle.
Quotient topological space Created 2026-10-06 Updated 2026-10-25
A quotient topological space is a quotient set equipped with the quotient topology. For a concrete gluing, give the closed interval its usual subspace topology, identify , and leave every interior point in its own singleton equivalence class. The resulting quotient space is a circle: the two endpoints become one point, while interior points remain distinct.
Figure 1.
Gluing the interval endpoints produces a circle, with matching colors showing the projection
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The exact continuous map to the unit circle in the plane is
Here sine and cosine give , and holds exactly when or . Thus induces a bijection . [ref] The universal property of the quotient topology makes continuous. The quotient of a compact space is compact, and the unit circle is Hausdorff, so the compact-to-Hausdorff continuous bijection theorem makes a homeomorphism. This verifies the topology, not merely the point identifications.
To inspect an open neighbourhood of the seam, choose and let . Its full preimage is
Both pieces are open in the subspace topology on , so is open in the circle. In contrast, is open in , but
is not open in : it contains without any neighbourhood of . Hence is not open in the circle. A quotient map can therefore fail to be an open map.
Figure 2.
An open neighbourhood crosses both sides of the glued seam; a one-sided arc fails the full-preimage test
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For a continuous function , the only gluing condition is . For example, defines a continuous function on the circle, whereas does not. This lets us use an interval as a coordinate for a periodic function while making the seam invisible. More general quotient spaces encode glued geometric pieces in the same way: describe continuous maps before gluing and check that their values agree on every equivalence class.
The Hausdorff property need not survive a quotient topology. In the non-Hausdorff quotient of the real line by rational translation, means . A nonempty open preimage must contain all translates by rational numbers of any open interval inside it. The density of the rational numbers then forces : for any , some rational number has in that interval. Thus this quotient space has the indiscrete topology. The irrationality of the square root of two gives distinct equivalence classes for and , so this quotient space is not Hausdorff. Unlike the endpoint-gluing circle, this gluing identifies a dense subset with each point.
Collapse the equator of a sphere to a single equivalence class and leave every other point in its own class. The two closed hemispheres are disks sharing that equator. A disk with its boundary collapsed is a sphere, so the two hemisphere quotients are spheres sharing just one point: their wedge sum. An explicit map sends height and longitude on the upper hemisphere to , and sends the lower hemisphere to the sphere centred at by reversing the first coordinate. The equator goes to the common origin and the poles go to . This map is continuous and has precisely the collapsed equator as its only nonsingleton fibre. Its induced map is a homeomorphism by the compact-to-Hausdorff continuous bijection theorem.