Topologist's sine curve

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As x approaches zero from the right, the magnitude of the rate of change of 1/x increases. This is why the frequency of the sine wave increases as one moves to the left in the graph. Topologist's sine curve.svg
As x approaches zero from the right, the magnitude of the rate of change of 1/x increases. This is why the frequency of the sine wave increases as one moves to the left in the graph.

In the branch of mathematics known as topology, the topologist's sine curve or Warsaw sine curve is a topological space with several interesting properties that make it an important textbook example.

Contents

It can be defined as the graph of the function on the half-open interval , together with the origin, under the topology induced from the Euclidean plane:


Properties

The topologist's sine curve T is connected but neither locally connected nor path connected. This is because it includes the point (0, 0) but there is no way to link the function to the origin so as to make a path.

The space T is the continuous image of a locally compact space (namely, let V be the space and use the map defined by and for x > 0), but T is not locally compact itself.

The topological dimension of T is 1.

Variants

Two variants of the topologist's sine curve have other interesting properties:

See also

References

  1. Munkres, James R (1979). Topology; a First Course. Englewood Cliffs. p. 158. ISBN   9780139254956.