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Definition: Compact sets, connected sets, closed sets

Definition 1a: A set XX is compact iff every open covering of XX has a finite sub-covering. In the unification of EVT gives a more detailed definition of open covering and finite sub-covering.

Definition 1b: We define connected sets by defining its dual concept dis-connected: A set YY is dis-connected iff we can split YY into two open, disjoint, non-empty sets U,VU,V. And if a set XX is not dis-connected we say it is connected.

Definition 1c: The previous dual concept definition works for closed: A set YY is open in AA (where AA is the whole set and may be omitted when it is clear) iff for every y∈Yy\in Y, there exists a ϵ>0\epsilon >0 such that all points in AA with distance (which can be thought as normal distance of two points in R\mathbb{R}) less than ϵ\epsilon is in YY. And a set XX is closed in AA iff the set A\XA\backslash X is open in AA.

Theorem (Heine-Borel in R\mathbb{R}): A set in R\mathbb{R} is compact if and only if it is closed and bounded.

Example 1: Any closed interval [a,b][a,b] is closed and bounded, so compact.

Example 2: R\mathbb{R} is closed, but is not bounded, so is not compact.

Example 3: The open interval (a,b)(a,b) is bounded but not closed, so not compact. The intervals (a,b](a,b] and [a,b)[a,b) are not closed (and not open), so are not compact.

Example 4: Any finite union of closed bounded intervals [a,b][a,b] is closed, so is compact.

Proposition 1a: Continuous functions map compact sets to compact sets

Proposition 1b: Continuous functions map connected sets to connected sets.

TODO explain prop 1

Proposition 2: The connected sets in R\mathbb{R} are exactly the intervals.

TODO explain propositions

Theorem (Extreme Value Theorem): A continuous function f:[a,b]→Rf:[a,b]\to\mathbb{R} attains its maximum and minimum.

Proof: ff is continuous and [a,b][a,b] is both compact and connected, so by Proposition 1, its image f(X)={y∈R:f(x)=y for some x∈[a,b]}f(X)=\{y\in\mathbb{R}:f(x)=y\text{ for some }x\in[a,b]\} is also compact and connected. f(X)f(X) connected means it is an interval (Prop. 2), and f(X)f(X) compact means it is closed and bounded (Heine-Borel Theorem). Thus f(X)f(X) is a closed, bounded interval, say f(X)=[c,d]f(X)=[c,d], so ff attains its maximum dd and minimum cc.

The Extreme Value Theorem can be generalized to spaces other than R\mathbb{R}. This generalization is usually covered in point-set topology.

Theorem (generalized Extreme Value Theorem): A continuous function f:X→Yf:X\to Y, for XX compact, attains its maximum and minimum.

Here XX and YY are objects called topological spaces, with the requirement that YY also has something called the order topology. Intuitively, topological spaces are spaces where we can talk about open and closed sets. The real line R\mathbb{R} is an example of a topological space. At least the generalized Extreme Value Theorem looks pretty similar to the case for R\mathbb{R}, right? The proof is a bit different though (can't use the Heine-Borel theorem for the more general topological space XX!).

Type a concept, like “slope” or “photosynthesis”.

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