MAT 570 Real Analysis

John Quigg Fall 2010

revised August 10, 2010

Notes on: Completeness

Lemma 1. A metric space is complete if and only if every decreasing sequence of nonempty
closed subsets whose diameters shrink to 0 has nonempty intersection.
Proof. First assume that X is complete, and let {An } be a decreasing sequence of nonempty
closed sets whose diameters shrink to 0. For each n choose xn ∈ An . Then {xn } is Cauchy
by construction, so converges to some x ∈ X by completeness. For each n, the tail T∞{xk }k≥n
is a convergent sequence in the closed set An , so the limit x is in An . Thus x ∈ 1 An .
Conversely, assume the condition involving closed sets, and let {xn } be a Cauchy sequence
in X. Then the closed sets {xk : k ≥ n} are decreasing and have diameters shrinking to 0,
so it follows from Lemma 2 below that {xn } has a convergent subsequence, and therefore
converges since it is Cauchy. 
Lemma 2. Let {xn } be a sequence in a metric space X, and for each n define
An = {xk : k ≥ n}.
T∞
Then 1 An consists precisely of the limits of convergent subsequences of {xn }.
Proof. Exercise. 
Theorem 3. Every metric space has a completion.
Proof. Let X be a metric space, and assume without loss of generality that X is nonempty.
Let B(X) denote the vector space of bounded real-valued functions on X, which is a Banach
space with the sup norm. Fix a ∈ X, and for each x ∈ X define φ(x) : X → R by
φ(x)(t) = d(x, t) − d(t, a).
Then
|φ(x)(t)| ≤ d(x, a),
so we have kφ(x)k ≤ d(x, a). Thus φ(x) ∈ B(X). For x, y ∈ X we have




φ(x) − φ(y) (t) = d(x, t) − d(t, a) − d(y, t) − d(t, a) = d(x, t) − d(y, t),
and it follows that
kφ(x) − φ(y)k ≤ d(x, y).
On the other hand,


φ(x) − φ(y) (y) = d(x, y) − d(y, y) = d(x, y),
so in fact we must have kφ(x) − φ(y)k = d(x, y). Thus φ is an isometric embedding of X into
B(X). Since B(X) is complete, the closure φ(X) is complete, and therefore is a completion
of X.