Let and be the quotient maps. The continuous mapis 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. ThusBy 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 , putIn , 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.
Here must denote the closed disc , as its boundary points participate in the identification. For , defineThe Pythagorean trigonometric identity gives , so the image lies in the sphere . Away from the origin the formula is continuous. At the origin, the first two coordinates have absolute value at most and the third tends to , proving continuity there as well.
Every boundary point maps to , while the origin maps to . For a point with , there is a unique with , and its unique preimage isThis point has radius , because . The two poles have the preimages already described. Thus is surjective and its fibers are exactly the prescribed equivalence classes.
The closed disc is compact by the Heine-Borel theorem, and is Hausdorff with the subspace topology from Euclidean space. The preceding result gives the homeomorphism
Two stereographic charts on the circle 2026-10-14
Take the circle with its subspace topology. Write for its west point and for its east point. Two coordinate charts obtained by stereographic projection areBoth take values in the entire real line. Geometrically, join to and intersect the resulting line with : the height is . Projecting from instead gives height . Each projection omits its own starting point, but the other coordinate chart includes that point. Hence .[ref]
To verify the homeomorphisms, solve the displayed equations for . The inverse functions areEach formula lies on the circle, avoids its excluded point, and is continuous for every real argument. Substitution into the projection formulas returns or ; substitution in the other direction returns . Thus these are continuous bijections with continuous inverse functions, as required for coordinate charts. Since the Euclidean plane is Hausdorff and second countable, the subset with its subspace topology is too. This checks all three conditions for a topological manifold, rather than just drawing a smooth-looking curve.
On the overlap , both are excluded, so . Using , the topological transition map isFor example, has and . The two connected components of the overlap, the upper and lower arcs, correspond to the positive and negative parts of the punctured real line. The values and represent and , respectively, and belong to only one chart each. The reciprocal coordinate change and its inverse function are smooth functions away from zero, so this topological atlas also supplies a smooth atlas.
Why can neither chart be enlarged to a single coordinate chart on the whole circle? The circle is a closed set and a bounded set in the Euclidean plane, hence compact by the Heine-Borel theorem. A global coordinate chart would give a homeomorphism to a nonempty open set . Its image would be compact and therefore closed in the real line. By connectedness of the real line, this forces , which is not compact. This is the one-dimensional instance of no compact manifold has a single Euclidean chart. Locally the circle is indistinguishable from the real line; globally compactness obstructs a single chart.
If is not compact, there is an unbounded continuous function . By the Heine-Borel theorem, either is unbounded, when works, or it is not closed. In the latter case choose ; the continuous function is unbounded because points of approach the missing limit point . This proof uses the specific compactness characterization of real subspaces; boundedness of a general metric space does not imply compactness.
