Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2008 ib Paper 1 12F d Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
A Hausdorff, noncompact topology. The condition says precisely that each point of lies in a residue class contained in . These classes form a basis: the intersection of two classes containing a common point contains the class through that point with modulus equal to the least common multiple of their moduli. Thus arbitrary unions obey the condition, and so do finite intersections. Also and obey it. This is the profinite topology on .
If , choose . Then and are disjoint open neighbourhoods, proving the Hausdorff property. To test compactness, defineEvery is nonempty and both open and closed: its complement is a finite union of other residue classes. Since , . If belonged to their intersection, then would be divisible by for every , forcing , impossible for an integer. Therefore is an increasing open cover of . Any finite subcollection has union for its largest index and misses the nonempty . This proves that the profinite topology on the integers is not compact.