topology (point-set topology, point-free topology)
see also differential topology, algebraic topology, functional analysis and topological homotopy theory
Basic concepts
fiber space, space attachment
Extra stuff, structure, properties
Kolmogorov space, Hausdorff space, regular space, normal space
sequentially compact, countably compact, locally compact, sigma-compact, paracompact, countably paracompact, strongly compact
Examples
Basic statements
closed subspaces of compact Hausdorff spaces are equivalently compact subspaces
open subspaces of compact Hausdorff spaces are locally compact
compact spaces equivalently have converging subnet of every net
continuous metric space valued function on compact metric space is uniformly continuous
paracompact Hausdorff spaces equivalently admit subordinate partitions of unity
injective proper maps to locally compact spaces are equivalently the closed embeddings
locally compact and second-countable spaces are sigma-compact
Theorems
Analysis Theorems
The notion of topological space aims to axiomatize the idea of a space as a collection of points that hang together (“cohere”) in a continuous way. Roughly speaking, a topology on a set “of points” prescribes which subsets are to be considered “neighborhoods” of the points they contain. Various conditions or axioms must be satisfied in order for such neighborhood systems to form a topology, but one of the most important is that for any two neighborhoods of a point, their intersection must also be a neighborhood of that point.
Many notions of spaces used in mathematics have underlying topological spaces, such as: manifolds, schemes, probability spaces, etc.
The concept of a topology, gradually refined over the latter half of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th, was developed to capture what it means abstractly for a mapping between sets of points to be “continuous”. Intuitively, the idea of bending, twisting or crumpling a continuous body applies to continuous mappings, because they preserve neighborhood relations (in a suitable sense), but tearing, for instance, does not.
For example, the surface of a torus or doughnut is topologically equivalent to the surface of a mug: the surface of the mug can be deformed continuously into the surface of a torus. Abstractly speaking: the continuous cohesion among the collections of points of the two surfaces is the same. Similarly, a circle and a square are considered equivalent from the standpoint of their topologies.
Some one-dimensional shapes with different topologies: the Mercedes-Benz symbol, a line, a circle, a complete graph with 5 nodes, the skeleton of a cube, and an asterisk (or, if you’ll permit the one-dimensional approximation, a starfish). On the other hand, a circle has the same topology as a line segment with a wormhole at its finish which teleports you to its start; or more prosaically: The circle is homeomorphic to the closed interval with endpoints identified.
There is a generalization of the notion of topological spaces to that of locales, which consists of dropping the assumption that all neighbourhoods are explicitly or even necessarily supported by points. For this reason, the theory of locales is sometimes called “pointless topology”. In this form, the definition turns out to be quite fundamental and can be naturally motivated from just pure logic – as the formal dual of frames – as well as, and dually, from category theory in its variant as topos theory – by the notion of (0,1)-toposes.
Topological spaces are the objects studied in topology. But types of topological spaces exist in such great and wild profusion that in practice it is often more convenient to replace strict topological equivalence by a notion of weak equivalence, namely of weak homotopy equivalence. From this point of view, topological spaces support also homotopy theory.
Topological spaces equipped with extra properties and structure form the fundament of much of geometry. For instance a topological space locally isomorphic to a Cartesian space is a manifold. A topological space equipped with a notion of smooth functions into it is a diffeological space. The intersection of these two notions is that of a smooth manifold on which differential geometry is based. And so on.
We present first the
and then a list of different
Finally we mention genuine
A topological space is a set equipped with a set of subsets , called the open sets, which are closed under
finite intersections,
arbitrary unions.
The word ‘topology’ sometimes means the study of topological spaces but here it means the collection of open sets in a topological space. In particular, if someone says ‘Let be a topology on ’, then they mean ‘Let be equipped with the structure of a topological space, and let be the collection of open sets in this space’.
Since itself is the intersection of zero subsets, it is open, and since the empty set is the union of zero subsets, it is also open. Moreover, every open subset of contains the empty set and is contained in
so that the topology of is determined by a poset of open subsets with bottom element and top element .
Since by definition the elements in this poset are closed under finite meets (intersection) and arbitrary joins (unions), this poset of open subsets defining a topology is a frame, the frame of opens of .
A homomorphism between topological spaces is a continuous function:
a function of the underlying sets such that the preimage of every open set of is an open set of .
Topological spaces with continuous maps between them form a category, usually denoted Top.
The definition of continuous function is such that it induces a homomorphism of the corresponding frames of opens the other way around
And this is not just a morphism of posets but even of frames. For more on this see at locale.
There are many equivalent ways to define a topological space. A non-exhaustive list follows:
A set with a frame of open sets (the standard definition, given above), called a topology on .
A set with a co-frame of closed sets (the complements of the open sets), satisfying dual axioms: closure under finite unions and arbitrary intersections. This is sometimes called a co-topology on .
A pair , where is a left exact comonad on the power set of (the “interior operator”). In more nuts-and-bolts terms, this means for all subsets of we have
The open sets are exactly the fixed points of . The first three of these conditions say is a coclosure operator.
A pair where is a right exact Moore closure operator satisfying axioms dual to those of . The closed sets are the fixed points of . Such an operator is sometimes called a Kuratowski closure operator (compare Kuratowski’s closure-complement problem at closed subspace).
A set together with, for each , a filter on , i.e., a collection of inhabited subsets of closed under finite intersections and also upward-closed ( and together imply ). If , we call a neighborhood of . The remaining conditions on these neighborhood systems are that for every , and that for every , there exists such that and is a neighborhood of each point it contains. In this formulation, a subset is open if it is a neighborhood of every point it contains.
The next two definitions of topological space are at a higher level of abstraction, but the underlying idea that connects them with the neighborhood system formulation is that we say a filter on converges to a point if . The point then is to characterize properties of convergence abstractly.
A relational beta-module; that is, a lax algebra of the monad of ultrafilters on the (1,2)-category Rel of sets and binary relations. More explicitly, this means a set together with a relation called “convergence” between ultrafilters and points satisfying certain axioms. This exhibits it as a special sort of generalized multicategory, and also as a special sort of pseudotopological space. However, the equivalence of this definition to the traditional definition of a topological space requires the ultrafilter principle to be true.
A set with a convergence relation between nets or filters (not just ultrafilters) and points, or even between transfinite sequences and points, satisfying appropriate axioms.
The following are not definitions, but they provide alternative ways to present a topological space.
If is a base on , then it is easily shown that the collection of all unions of subcollections of is a topology on .
From the fact that the intersection of any collection of topologies is also a topology, there is a smallest topology that contains a given subbase . It consists of all possible unions of all possible finite intersections of members of . This is called the topology generated by the subbase.
Historically, the notion of topological space (see the historical references given there) involving neighbourhoods was first developed by Felix Hausdorff in 1914 in his seminal text on set theory and topology, Fundamentals of Set Theory (Grundzüge der Mengenlehre). Hausdorff’s definition originally contained the -separation axiom (now known as the definition of Hausdorff spaces). This axiom was in effect removed by Kazimierz Kuratowski in 1922, who defined general topological spaces in terms of closure operators that preserve finite unions. The usual open set formulation was widely popularized by Bourbaki in their 1940 treatise (without identifying a single author behind this notion).
However, in more modern treatments that emphasize category theoretic methods, particularly to address needs of homotopy theory, it becomes important to consider not just the category Top of all topological spaces, but convenient categories of topological spaces that are better behaved, especially with regard to function spaces and cartesian closure. Thus many texts work with nice topological spaces (such as sequential topological spaces) and/or a nice- or convenient category of topological spaces (such as compactly generated spaces), or indeed to directly use a model of -groupoids (such as simplicial sets).
On the other hand, when doing topos theory or working in constructive mathematics, it is often more appropriate to use locales than topological spaces.
Some applications to analysis require more general convergence spaces or other generalisations.
There are also unified topological spaces which contains notions of apartness and nearness in addition to the usual notion of neighbourhood in a topological space.
In dependent type theory, one could also have a topological space be a general type instead of an h-set. For most kinds of topological spaces in dependent type theory, the -separation axiom forces the type to be an h-set.
In dependent type theory, given a type , the type of all subtypes of , the powerset of , is defined as the function type
where is the type of all propositions with the type reflector type family . In the inference rules for the type of all propositions, one has an operation which takes a proposition and turns it into an element of the type of all propositions .
The local membership relation between elements and material subtypes is defined as
Arbitrary unions and intersections of subtypes could be defined in dependent type theory:
Given a type and a type , there is an function called the -indexed intersection, such that for all families of subtypes , is defined as
for all , where
is the universal quantification of a type family and is the propositional truncation of .
Given a type and a type , there is an function called the -indexed union, such that for all families of subtypes , is defined as
for all , where
is the existential quantification of a type family and is the propositional truncation of .
In dependent type theory, however, one cannot quantify over arbitrary types, since one could only quantify over elements of a type. Instead, one has to use a Tarski universe , where the elements of represent -small types, and then quantify over . In the case of topological spaces, instead of the open sets being closed under arbitrary unions, the open sets are only closed under all -small unions for .
Given a Tarski universe , a topological space is a type with a -small topology, a type of subtypes with canonical embedding , called the open sets of , which are closed under finite intersections and -small unions.
Given a topological space , we define the membership relation between elements and open sets :
by
By definition of the type of all propositions and its type reflector, is always a h-proposition for all and .
…
…
The Cartesian space with its standard notion of open subsets generated from: unions of open balls .
first countable topological space, second countable topological space, separable topological space, Hausdorff topological space, topological manifold
connected topological spaces, simply connected topological space
The general idea of topology goes back to:
The notion of topological space involving neighbourhoods was first developed, for the special case now known as Hausdorff spaces, in:
The more general definition – dropping Hausdorff’s -separation axiom and formulated in terms of closure operators that preserve finite unions – is due to:
The modern formulation via open set was widely popularized by:
Nicolas Bourbaki], Eléments de mathématique II. Première partie. Les structures fondamentales de l’analyse. Livre III. Topologie générale. Chapitre I. Structures topologiques. Actualités scientifiques et industrielles, vol. 858. Hermann, Paris (1940)
General topology, Elements of Mathematics III, Springer (1971, 1990, 1995) [doi:10.1007/978-3-642-61701-0]
Further textbook accounts:
John Kelley, General topology, D. van Nostrand, New York (1955), reprinted as: Graduate Texts in Mathematics, Springer (1975) [ISBN:978-0-387-90125-1]
James Dugundji, Topology, Allyn and Bacon 1966 (pdf)
James Munkres, Topology, Prentice Hall (1975, 2000) [ISBN:0-13-181629-2, pdf]
Richard E. Hodel (ed.), Set-Theoretic Topology, Academic Press (1977) [doi:10.1016/C2013-0-11355-4]
Klaus Jänich, Topology, Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics, Springer (1984, 1999) [ISBN:9780387908922, doi:10.1007/978-3-662-10574-0, Chapters 1-2: pdf]
Ryszard Engelking, General Topology, Sigma series in pure mathematics 6, Heldermann 1989 (ISBN 388538-006-4)
Steven Vickers, Topology via Logic, Cambridge University Press (1989) (toc pdf)
Glen Bredon, Topology and Geometry, Graduate Texts in Mathematics 139, Springer (1993) [doi:10.1007/978-1-4757-6848-0, pdf]
Terry Lawson, Topology: A Geometric Approach, Oxford University Press (2003) (pdf)
Anatole Katok, Alexey Sossinsky, Introduction to Modern Topology and Geometry (2010) [toc pdf, pdf]
and leading over to homotopy theory:
On counterexamples in topology:
With emphasis on category theoretic aspects of general topology, notably on -reflections:
Horst Herrlich, George Strecker, Categorical topology – Its origins as exemplified by the unfolding of the theory of topological reflections and coreflections before 1971 (pdf), pages 255-341 in: C. E. Aull, R Lowen (eds.), Handbook of the History of General Topology. Vol. 1, Kluwer 1997 (doi:10.1007/978-94-017-0468-7)
Tai-Danae Bradley, Tyler Bryson, John Terilla, Topology – A categorical approach, MIT Press 2020 (ISBN:9780262539357, web version)
See also:
Neil Strickland, A Bestiary of Topological Objects [pdf, pdf]
and see further references at algebraic topology.
Lecture notes:
Friedhelm Waldhausen, Topologie (pdf)
Alex Kuronya, Introduction to topology, 2010 (pdf)
Anatole Katok, Alexey Sossinsky, Introduction to modern topology and geometry (pdf)
Urs Schreiber, Introduction to Topology, Bonn 2017
Michael Müger, Topology for the working mathematician, Nijmegen 2018 (pdf)
Basic topology set up in intuitionistic mathematics is discussed in
See also:
Last revised on September 6, 2024 at 12:00:16. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.