In mathematics, a continuous function is a function such that a continuous variation of the argument induces a continuous variation of the value of the function. This means that there are no abrupt changes in value, known as discontinuities. More precisely, a function is continuous if arbitrarily small changes in its value can be assured by restricting to sufficiently small changes of its argument. A discontinuous function is a function that is not continuous. Up until the 19th century, mathematicians largely relied on intuitive notions of continuity, and considered only continuous functions. The epsilon–delta definition of a limit was introduced to formalize the definition of continuity.
In category theory, a branch of mathematics, a Grothendieck topology is a structure on a category C that makes the objects of C act like the open sets of a topological space. A category together with a choice of Grothendieck topology is called a site.
In mathematics, a topological space is, roughly speaking, a geometrical space in which closeness is defined but cannot necessarily be measured by a numeric distance. More specifically, a topological space is a set whose elements are called points, along with an additional structure called a topology that can be defined as a set of neighbourhoods for each point, that satisfy some axioms formalizing the concept of closeness. There are several equivalent definitions of a topology, the most commonly used is the definition through open sets, which is easier to manipulate.
This is a glossary of some terms used in the branch of mathematics known as topology. Although there is no absolute distinction between different areas of topology, the focus here is on general topology. The following definitions are also fundamental to algebraic topology, differential topology and geometric topology.
In mathematics, open sets are a generalization of open intervals in the real line.
In topology, the closure of a subset S of points in a topological space consists of all points in S together with all limit points of S. The closure of S may equivalently be defined as the union of S and its boundary, and also as the intersection of all closed sets containing S. Intuitively, the closure can be thought of as all the points that are either in S or "near" S. A point which is in the closure of S is a point of closure of S. The notion of closure is in many ways dual to the notion of interior.
In mathematics, a topological vector space is one of the basic structures investigated in functional analysis. A topological vector space is a vector space that is also a topological space with the property that the vector space operations are also continuous functions. Such a topology is called a vector topology and every topological vector space has a uniform topological structure, allowing a notion of uniform convergence and completeness. Some authors also require that the space is a Hausdorff space. One of the most widely studied categories of TVSs are locally convex topological vector spaces. This article focuses on TVSs that are not necessarily locally convex. Banach spaces, Hilbert spaces and Sobolev spaces are other well-known examples of TVSs.
In geometry, topology, and related branches of mathematics, a closed set is a set whose complement is an open set. In a topological space, a closed set can be defined as a set which contains all its limit points. In a complete metric space, a closed set is a set which is closed under the limit operation. This should not be confused with a closed manifold.
In mathematics, a paracompact space is a topological space in which every open cover has an open refinement that is locally finite. These spaces were introduced by Dieudonné (1944). Every compact space is paracompact. Every paracompact Hausdorff space is normal, and a Hausdorff space is paracompact if and only if it admits partitions of unity subordinate to any open cover. Sometimes paracompact spaces are defined so as to always be Hausdorff.
In mathematics, specifically in topology, the interior of a subset S of a topological space X is the union of all subsets of S that are open in X. A point that is in the interior of S is an interior point of S.
In topology and related branches of mathematics, the Kuratowski closure axioms are a set of axioms that can be used to define a topological structure on a set. They are equivalent to the more commonly used open set definition. They were first formalized by Kazimierz Kuratowski, and the idea was further studied by mathematicians such as Wacław Sierpiński and António Monteiro, among others.
In mathematics, a closure operator on a set S is a function :{\mathcal {P}}(S)\rightarrow {\mathcal {P}}(S)} from the power set of S to itself that satisfies the following conditions for all sets
In functional analysis and related areas of mathematics, locally convex topological vector spaces (LCTVS) or locally convex spaces are examples of topological vector spaces (TVS) that generalize normed spaces. They can be defined as topological vector spaces whose topology is generated by translations of balanced, absorbent, convex sets. Alternatively they can be defined as a vector space with a family of seminorms, and a topology can be defined in terms of that family. Although in general such spaces are not necessarily normable, the existence of a convex local base for the zero vector is strong enough for the Hahn–Banach theorem to hold, yielding a sufficiently rich theory of continuous linear functionals.
In topology and related branches of mathematics, total-boundedness is a generalization of compactness for circumstances in which a set is not necessarily closed. A totally bounded set can be covered by finitely many subsets of every fixed “size”.
In topology, a proximity space, also called a nearness space, is an axiomatization of the intuitive notion of "nearness" that hold set-to-set, as opposed to the better known point-to-set notion that characterize topological spaces.
In the mathematical field of topology, a topological space is usually defined by declaring its open sets. However, this is not necessary, as there are many equivalent axiomatic foundations, each leading to exactly the same concept. For instance, a topological space determines a class of closed sets, of closure and interior operators, and of convergence of various types of objects. Each of these can instead be taken as the primary class of objects, with all of the others directly determined from that new starting point. For example, in Kazimierz Kuratowski's well-known textbook on point-set topology, a topological space is defined as a set together with a certain type of "closure operator," and all other concepts are derived therefrom. Likewise, the neighborhood-based axioms can be retraced to Felix Hausdorff's original definition of a topological space in Grundzüge der Mengenlehre.
In topology and related fields of mathematics, a sequential space is a topological space whose topology can be completely characterized by its convergent/divergent sequences. They can be thought of as spaces that satisfy a very weak axiom of countability, and all first-countable spaces are sequential.
In topology, a preclosure operator, or Čech closure operator is a map between subsets of a set, similar to a topological closure operator, except that it is not required to be idempotent. That is, a preclosure operator obeys only three of the four Kuratowski closure axioms.
Filters in topology, a subfield of mathematics, can be used to study topological spaces and define all basic topological notions such a convergence, continuity, compactness, and more. Filters, which are special families of subsets of some given set, also provide a common framework for defining various types of limits of functions such as limits from the left/right, to infinity, to a point or a set, and many others. Special types of filters called ultrafilters have many useful technical properties and they may often be used in place of arbitrary filters.
In functional analysis and related areas of mathematics, a complete topological vector space is a topological vector space (TVS) with the property that whenever points get progressively closer to each other, then there exists some point towards which they all get closer. The notion of "points that get progressively closer" is made rigorous by Cauchy nets or Cauchy filters, which are generalizations of Cauchy sequences, while "point towards which they all get closer" means that this Cauchy net or filter converges to The notion of completeness for TVSs uses the theory of uniform spaces as a framework to generalize the notion of completeness for metric spaces. But unlike metric-completeness, TVS-completeness does not depend on any metric and is defined for all TVSs, including those that are not metrizable or Hausdorff.
