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Exercise 10.10
Theorem. Let and be well-ordered sets; assume that there is no surjective function mapping a section of onto . Then there exists a unique function satisfying the equation
for each , where is the section of by .
Proof.
- (a)
- If and map sections of , or all of , into and satisfy for all in their respective domains, show that for all in both domains.
- (b)
- If there exists a function satisfying , show that there exists a function satisfying .
- (c)
- If and for all
there exists
a function
satisfying ,
show that there exists a function
satisfying .
- (d)
- Show by transfinite induction that for every , there exists a function satisfying . [Hint: If has an immediate predecessor , then . If not, is the union of all with .]
- (e)
- Prove the theorem.
Answers
The following lemma is proven by transfinite induction, which is more straightforward than having to frame everything in terms of inductive sets. Henceforth we use this whenever transfinite induction is required.
Lemma 1. (Proof by transfinite induction) Suppose that is a well-ordered set and is a proposition with parameter . Suppose also that if is true for all (where is a section of ), then is also true. Then is true for every .
Proof. Let . We show that is inductive. So consider any and suppose that . Then, for any we have that so that . It then follows that is also true since was arbitrary, and so . Since was arbitrary, this shows that is inductive. It then follows from Exercise 10.7 that . So consider any so that also and hence is true. Since was arbitrary, this shows the desired result. □
Main Problem.
(a)
Proof. First, suppose that the domains of and are sets and where each is either a section of or itself. Since this is the case, we can assume without loss of generality that and so is exactly the domain common to both and . Now suppose that the hypothesis we are trying to prove is not true so that there is an in both domains (i.e. ) where . We can also assume that is the smallest such element since and are well-ordered. It then clearly follows that is a section of and that for all . From this, we clearly have that . But then we have
since both and satisfy and is in the domain of both. This contradicts the supposition that so that it must be that no such exists and hence and are the same in their common domain as desired. □
(b)
Proof. Suppose that is such a function satisfying . Now let and we define as follows. For any set
We note that clearly and are disjoint so that this is unambiguous. We also note that is not surjective onto since is a section of , and hence and so has a smallest element since is well-ordered.
Now we show that satisfies . First, clearly for any since by definition for any . Now consider any . If then by definition we have
On the other hand, if then so that
since satisfies . Therefore, since was arbitrary, this shows that also satisfies . □
(c)
Proof. Let
which we claim is the function we seek.
First, we show that is actually a function from to . So consider any in the domain of . Suppose that and are both in so that there are and in where and . Since and both satisfy , it follows from part (a) that since clearly is in the domain of both. This shows that is indeed a function since and were arbitrary. Also clearly the domain of is since, for any , we have that there is an where . Hence is in the domain of and so in the domain of . In the other direction, clearly, if is in the domain of then it is in the domain of for some . Since this domain is , clearly . Lastly, obviously, the range of can be since this is the range of every .
Now we show that satisfies . So consider any so that for some . Clearly we have that for every since . It then immediately follows that and since . Then, since satisfies , we have
Since was arbitrary, this shows that satisfies as desired. □
(d)
Proof. Consider any and suppose that, for every , there is a function satisfying . Now, if has an immediate predecessor then we claim that . First if then so that since is the immediate predecessor of . If then and if then . Hence in either case we have that . Now suppose that . If then so that . On the other hand if then so that again . Thus we have shown that and so that . Since it follows that there is an that satisfies . Then, by part (b), we have that there is an that also satisfies .
If does not have an immediate predecessor then we claim that . So consider any so that . Since cannot be the immediate predecessor of , there must be an where . Then so that, since , clearly . Now suppose that so that there is an where . Then clearly so that also . Thus we have shown that and so that . Now, clearly is a subset of where there is an satisfying for every . Then it follows from what was shown in part (c) that there is a function from to that satisfies .
Therefore, in either case, we have shown that there is an that satisfies . The desired result then follows by transfinite induction. □
(e)
Proof. First, suppose that has no largest element. Then we claim that . For any there must be a where since cannot be the greatest element of . Hence so that also clearly . Then, for any , there is an where . Clearly, so that also. Hence and so that . Since we know from part (d) that there is an that satisfies for every , it follows from part (c) that there is a function from to that satisfies .
If does have a largest element then clearly . Since we know that there is an that satisfies by part (d), it follows from part (b) that there is a function from to that satisfies . Hence the desired function exists in both cases. part (a) also clearly shows that this function is unique. □