Springer Undergraduate Mathematics Series

Editor-in-Chief
Endre Süli, Oxford, UK

Series Editors
Mark A. J. Chaplain, St. Andrews, UK
Angus Macintyre, Edinburgh, UK
Shahn Majid, London, UK
Nicole Snashall, Leicester, UK
Michael R. Tehranchi, Cambridge, UK
The Springer Undergraduate Mathematics Series (SUMS) is a series designed for
undergraduates in mathematics and the sciences worldwide. From core foundational
material to final year topics, SUMS books take a fresh and modern approach.
Textual explanations are supported by a wealth of examples, problems and fully-
worked solutions, with particular attention paid to universal areas of difficulty. These
practical and concise texts are designed for a one- or two-semester course but the
self-study approach makes them ideal for independent use.
Rafael López

Point-Set Topology
A Working Textbook
Rafael López
Departamento de Geometría y Topología
Universidad de Granada
Granada, Spain

ISSN 1615-2085 ISSN 2197-4144 (electronic)

Springer Undergraduate Mathematics Series
ISBN 978-3-031-58512-8 ISBN 978-3-031-58513-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-58513-5
Mathematics Subject Classification: 54-01

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland
AG 2024
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse
of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar
or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

If disposing of this product, please recycle the paper.

Preface

Learning mathematics requires doing mathematics. The set of definitions, theorems,

corollaries and so on cannot be apprehended by simply looking at a book. One does
not attain the real knowledge of a definition or a result if one does not bring it
to bear on the resolution of problems. And this goes in both directions; practice
using the concepts feeds back into a better understanding of them. Having a full
solution allows one to identify an approach to the problem and to acquire tools for
the following exercises, hence some exercises seem repeated. From repetition the
reader acquires the ability to learn and subsequently face more difficult exercises.
If students are never satisfied by the number of examples and solved exercises that
lecturers can realistically present in a lecture course, this book provides more than
enough exercises to acquire a reasonable knowledge of point-set topology.
This was the motivation for the writing of this book. In each chapter, there are
a large number of worked exercises that use the concepts, results and techniques
introduced in the chapter. These exercises can also introduce some more advanced
concepts, generalizations and new results. Moreover, the theoretical contents of each
chapter are accompanied by a large number of examples. Many of these examples
are fully developed and can therefore also be seen as solved exercises. Since much
of the material presented in this book can be found in many books, I have chosen to
omit proofs of standard results in order to focus on the exercises.
The book covers an introductory course in point-set topology, also known as
general topology, for undergraduate students. The material includes connectedness
and compactness as important topological invariants, and methods of construction
of topological spaces such as the relative topology, product topology and quotient
topology. The last chapter delves into algebraic topology with an introduction to the
notion of fundamental group. I include more than 160 examples in the main body of
the text, illustrating concepts and results. As a second class of examples, there are
numerous fully worked exercises at the end of each chapter, almost 300 in total.
The prerequisites for the reader are elements of set theory, including knowledge
of standard operations between subsets, properties of maps and basic notions of
cardinality. Nevertheless, reminders of relevant definitions and properties will be
included in the text as they arise. Other prerequisites are calculus of one variable,

v
vi Preface

including basics of convergence of sequences and continuity of functions, and

familiarity with the notions of (real) vector spaces and groups. It generally assumed
that the reader is familiar with mathematical proofs and logical reasonings, in
particular, proof by induction, by contrapositive and by contradiction.
The book is designed to be used for a year-long course divided into two
semesters. In the first semester, I recommend covering Chaps. 1–5, which introduce
the core concepts of point-set topology. The remaining chapters can be covered in
the second semester with the possible exception of Chap. 10, which can be omitted
if time is short. It is not necessary to cover all of the exercises in the text, especially
if the instructor feels that the relevant skill has already been acquired. Thus, the
instructor may choose which exercises to include at their discretion, leaving others
as reading for the students.
Each chapter is divided into sections. In general, a definition is followed by
several examples that illustrate the concept. Each example ends with the symbol
.♦. In every chapter, definitions, propositions, examples, theorems, etc. are marked

x,y,z, where x is the chapter number, y is the section and z is the proposition number
within the section. Only the Examples and the Worked Exercises follow their own
numbering, so in case of a cross-reference the reader will know if the exercise is
solved. The end of a proof or of a worked exercise is marked by the symbol .. We
will use the usual notation of the sets of numbers, .N, .Z, .Q, .I, .R and .C.

Granada, Spain Rafael López

February 2024
Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2 Topological Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1 Topological Spaces and Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2 Basis for a Topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.3 The Euclidean Topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.4 Subbasis for a Topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.5 Topological Subspaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.6 Worked Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.7 Suggested Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3 Proximity on a Topological Space. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.1 Neighborhoods of a Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.2 Basis of Neighborhoods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.3 Interior and Closure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.4 Convergence of Sequences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.5 Worked Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.6 Suggested Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4 Metric Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.1 Distance and Metric Spaces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.2 Topology on a Metric Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.3 Interior and Closure in a Metric Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
4.4 Convergence of Sequences in a Metric Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
4.5 Worked Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
4.6 Suggested Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
5 Continuity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
5.1 Continuous Mappings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
5.2 Properties of Continuous Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
5.3 Continuous Maps on Euclidean Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
5.4 Worked Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
5.5 Suggested Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

vii
viii Contents

6 Homeomorphisms and Topological Invariants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

6.1 Homeomorphisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
6.2 Topological Invariants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
6.3 Construction of Homeomorphisms in Euclidean Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . 168
6.4 Embeddings and Open Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
6.5 Worked Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
6.6 Suggested Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
7 Product Topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
7.1 The Product Topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
7.2 Product Topology and Continuity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
7.3 Product Topology: The Infinite Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
7.4 Worked Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
7.5 Suggested Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
8 Connectedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
8.1 Connected Spaces and Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
8.2 Further Properties of Connectedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
8.3 Connected Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
8.4 Path Connectedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
8.5 Worked Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
8.6 Suggested Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
9 Compactness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
9.1 Compact Spaces and Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
9.2 Compactness in Euclidean Spaces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
9.3 Worked Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
9.4 Suggested Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
10 Quotient Topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
10.1 Motivation and Definition of the Quotient Topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
10.2 Final Topology and Identifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
10.3 Construction of Homeomorphisms in a Quotient Space . . . . . . . . . . . 326
10.4 Maps Between Quotient Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
10.5 Worked Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
10.6 Suggested Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
11 The Fundamental Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
11.1 Homotopy and Loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
11.2 The Fundamental Group of S1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
11.3 The Fundamental Group of Sn , n ≥ 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
11.4 Retractions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
11.5 Worked Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378
11.6 Suggested Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395