Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 ib Paper 3 4A Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Include the empty set, and take all unions of intervals with . These intervals cover the real line, and the intersection of two is either empty or . Distributing intersections over unions therefore makes finite intersections of open sets open; arbitrary unions are open by construction. The whole line is open, so the axioms of a topology hold. This is the lower limit topology, whose space is the Sorgenfrey line.
If , the neighborhoods and are disjoint. Hence .
For the identity into the cofinite topology, an inverse image is the same subset of . Let be finite and . If has a point greater than , choose to be its least such point; otherwise take . Then avoids every point of , including itself. Taking these intervals over all writes as a -open set. The inverse image of every cofinite open set, and of the empty set, is open. The identity map is continuous, because .