Compact space: Difference between revisions
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In [[mathematics]], a compact space is a [[topological]] for which every covering of that space by a collection of [[open set]]s has a finite subcovering. If the space is a [[metric space]] then compactness is equivalent to the set being [[completeness|complete]] and [[totally bounded set|totally bounded]] and again equivalent to [[sequential compactness]]: that every sequence in the set has a convergent subsequence. | In [[mathematics]], a compact space is a [[topological space]] for which every covering of that space by a collection of [[open set]]s has a finite subcovering. If the space is a [[metric space]] then compactness is equivalent to the set being [[completeness|complete]] and [[totally bounded set|totally bounded]] and again equivalent to [[sequential compactness]]: that every sequence in the set has a convergent subsequence. | ||
A subset of a topological space is compact if it is compact with respect to the [[subspace topology]]. | A subset of a topological space is compact if it is compact with respect to the [[subspace topology]]. |
Revision as of 16:40, 31 October 2008
In mathematics, a compact space is a topological space for which every covering of that space by a collection of open sets has a finite subcovering. If the space is a metric space then compactness is equivalent to the set being complete and totally bounded and again equivalent to sequential compactness: that every sequence in the set has a convergent subsequence.
A subset of a topological space is compact if it is compact with respect to the subspace topology. A compact subset of a Hausdorff space is closed, but the converse does not hold in general. For the special case that the set is a subset of a finite dimensional normed space, such as the Euclidean spaces, then compactness is equivalent to that set being closed and bounded: this is the Heine-Borel theorem.
Cover and subcover of a set
Let A be a subset of a set X. A cover for A is any collection of subsets of X whose union contains A. In other words, a cover is of the form
where is an arbitrary index set, and satisfies
An open cover is a cover in which all of the sets are open. Finally, a subcover of is a subset of the form
with such that
Formal definition of compact space
A topological space X is said to be compact if every open cover of X has a finite subcover, that is, a subcover which contains at most a finite number of subsets of X (in other words, the index set is finite).
Examples
- Any finite space.
- An indiscrete space.
- A space with the cofinite topology.