Separable Banach space 2026-10-05
A Banach space is separable when it has a countable dense subset for its norm topology. It then has a countable base of norm balls and a countable norming family. Its continuous dual space need not be norm separable.
Separable topological space Created 2026-10-07 Updated 2026-10-14
A topological space is separable when it has a countable dense subset. The topology is part of the assertion: a dual may be separable in its weak-star topology and not in its norm topology. A compact metric space is separable by taking the union of finite nets at scales tending to zero.
Let and give each factor of the usual topology of the real line. The familiar standard basis vectors extend to unit sequences with when and zero otherwise. Their finite linear combinations are exactly the finitely supported sequences, rather than all of .
For every fixed coordinate , for all . Therefore in the product topology. More directly, any basic cylinder set containing zero contains every with : all of its tested coordinates are then zero. The moving unit entry escapes every fixed finite collection of observations.
Figure 1.
A moving unit entry escapes each fixed finite-coordinate cylinder
. Only coordinates 1 and 3 are tested in the displayed cylinder, with values required to lie between minus one-half and one-half. All later coordinates remain unrestricted. The finite display illustrates the pattern; the threshold argument in the text applies to every finite coordinate set. Details.
In the l-infinity sequence space of bounded real sequences, however,
Thus the same sequence does not converge to zero in the supremum norm. Here the comparison is between the subspace topology inherited from the product topology and the norm topology on . The supremum norm is not a finite-valued norm on all of , which also contains unbounded sequences. In the box topology on , the neighborhood of zero excludes every , so is not a convergent sequence with limit zero there either.
Subalgebra 2026-10-05
A linear subspace of an algebra over a field closed under multiplication is a subalgebra. If a unital subalgebra is intended, it must also contain the ambient identity. A closed subalgebra of a normed algebra is closed in the norm topology.
Topological vector space Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
A topological vector space is a vector space over or , equipped with a topology such that vector addition and scalar multiplication are jointly continuous:
The domains carry the product topology, and the scalar field carries its usual topology. Joint continuity permits both inputs to vary at once. Here the definition does not impose the Hausdorff condition; we state it separately when needed. [ref].
Every normed vector space is a topological vector space: the triangle inequality gives , while
controls scalar multiplication near any . More generally, a seminorm topology supplies many measurements of smallness, rather than one norm. Translation by any vector is a homeomorphism, so a neighbourhood basis at zero determines all neighbourhoods by translation.
The compatibility matters: on a nonzero real vector space, the discrete topology makes vector addition continuous, but not scalar multiplication. For , the sequence of scalars tends to zero, whereas the sequence never enters the open set . Thus choosing a topology arbitrarily need not respect the linear algebra.
This framework lets functional analysis choose the appropriate notion of limit of a sequence. Norm topology measures one global error, weak topology tests linear functionals, and the Fréchet space of smooth functions controls every order of derivative. In each case the operations forming linear combinations are continuous, making approximation compatible with the underlying equations.
The weak topology and norm topology of a separable Banach space generate the same Borel sigma-algebra. A countable norming family makes every norm ball weakly Borel measurable, and separability makes every norm-open set a countable union of such balls. The reverse inclusion follows because the weak topology is coarser.