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Simplicial Structures in Topology

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Chapter I<br />

Fundamental Concepts<br />

I.1 <strong>Topology</strong><br />

I.1.1 Topological Spaces<br />

Let X beagivenset. Atopology on X is a set U of subsets of X satisfy<strong>in</strong>g the<br />

follow<strong>in</strong>g properties:<br />

A1 /0,X ∈ U;<br />

A2 if {Uα | α ∈ J} is a set of elements of U,then<br />

�<br />

Uα ∈ U;<br />

α∈J<br />

A3 if {Uα | α = 1,...,n} is a f<strong>in</strong>ite set of elements of U,then<br />

n�<br />

Uα ∈ U.<br />

α=1<br />

A topological space or, simply, a space is a set X with a topology. The elements of<br />

U are the open sets of X; axioms A1, A2, and A3 above state that /0, X are open sets,<br />

that the union of any number of open sets is open, and that the <strong>in</strong>tersection of any<br />

f<strong>in</strong>ite number of open sets is open.<br />

The complement of an open set is a closed set and, therefore, /0 andX are both<br />

open and closed sets. A topology U may also be studied (and characterized) through<br />

the set of all closed subsets of the topological space. Let C be such a set; by def<strong>in</strong>ition,<br />

a set C is closed <strong>in</strong> X if and only if its complement X �C is open <strong>in</strong> X,andwe<br />

write<br />

C ∈ C ⇐⇒ X �C ∈ U.<br />

Moreover, the set C of all closed subsets satisfies the follow<strong>in</strong>g properties which<br />

characterize any set of closed sets of X:<br />

D.L. Ferrario and R.A. Picc<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>i, <strong>Simplicial</strong> <strong>Structures</strong> <strong>in</strong> <strong>Topology</strong>, 1<br />

CMS Books <strong>in</strong> Mathematics, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-7236-1 I,<br />

© Spr<strong>in</strong>ger Science+Bus<strong>in</strong>ess Media, LLC 2011

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