Isolated points in a countable complete metric space Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
Every nonempty countable complete metric space has an isolated point. Otherwise it is the countable union of its singleton subsets, each of which is nowhere dense, contradicting the Baire category theorem.
If such a space has infinitely many points, it has infinitely many isolated points. Indeed, after deleting any finite collection of isolated points, the remaining set is closed, complete, countable, and nonempty. It therefore has a point isolated in the remaining space; because the deleted set is finite, that point is also isolated in the original space.
First construct the spectral measure of a normal operator and prove the open-set assertion needed for all three numbered conclusions. The algebra generated by and is commutative because is a normal operator. The Gelfand transform identifies with . By spectral permanence for C-star algebras,
is onto: its image is the spectrum of in , which is also its spectrum in . It is injective because a character is determined by its values on and , and . Thus is a homeomorphism. Apply part (a) and set
This is a projection-valued measure with and
The associated continuous functional calculus is isometric: for .
If is nonempty and relatively open, choose and a nonzero continuous supported inside , for example a small continuous bump about in the metric of . If , then , contradicting . Therefore
This proves the claim from faithfulness of the representation rather than assuming it as part of the spectral theorem.
Now take an isolated point . Its singleton is relatively open, so . Multiplication of spectral integrals gives
Thus its range is contained in the eigenspace . Conversely, for in that kernel, the positive scalar spectral measure satisfies
It follows that , and hence . Consequently
The identification of this projection with the eigenspace holds even for a non-isolated ; isolation guarantees that it is nonzero.
The Baire category theorem says that a complete metric space cannot be a countable union of nowhere-dense closed sets. Equivalently, every countable intersection of open dense sets is dense.
A point of a metric space is an isolated point when some satisfies .