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MAT 570 Real Analysis: John Quigg Notes On: Completeness

1) The document discusses completeness in metric spaces. It defines a metric space as being complete if every decreasing sequence of nonempty closed subsets whose diameters shrink to 0 has nonempty intersection. 2) It proves this condition is equivalent to every Cauchy sequence in the space converging. 3) It then proves that every metric space has a completion - a larger complete metric space that contains the original space as a dense subset. It constructs the completion by isometrically embedding the space into the Banach space of bounded real-valued functions on the space.

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78 views1 page

MAT 570 Real Analysis: John Quigg Notes On: Completeness

1) The document discusses completeness in metric spaces. It defines a metric space as being complete if every decreasing sequence of nonempty closed subsets whose diameters shrink to 0 has nonempty intersection. 2) It proves this condition is equivalent to every Cauchy sequence in the space converging. 3) It then proves that every metric space has a completion - a larger complete metric space that contains the original space as a dense subset. It constructs the completion by isometrically embedding the space into the Banach space of bounded real-valued functions on the space.

Uploaded by

Naveen Gupta
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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MAT 570 Real Analysis

John Quigg Fall 2010


revised August 10, 2010

Notes on: Completeness

Lemma 1. A metric space is complete if and only if every decreasing sequence of nonempty
closed subsets whose diameters shrink to 0 has nonempty intersection.
Proof. First assume that X is complete, and let {An } be a decreasing sequence of nonempty
closed sets whose diameters shrink to 0. For each n choose xn ∈ An . Then {xn } is Cauchy
by construction, so converges to some x ∈ X by completeness. For each n, the tail T∞{xk }k≥n
is a convergent sequence in the closed set An , so the limit x is in An . Thus x ∈ 1 An .
Conversely, assume the condition involving closed sets, and let {xn } be a Cauchy sequence
in X. Then the closed sets {xk : k ≥ n} are decreasing and have diameters shrinking to 0,
so it follows from Lemma 2 below that {xn } has a convergent subsequence, and therefore
converges since it is Cauchy. 
Lemma 2. Let {xn } be a sequence in a metric space X, and for each n define
An = {xk : k ≥ n}.
T∞
Then 1 An consists precisely of the limits of convergent subsequences of {xn }.
Proof. Exercise. 
Theorem 3. Every metric space has a completion.
Proof. Let X be a metric space, and assume without loss of generality that X is nonempty.
Let B(X) denote the vector space of bounded real-valued functions on X, which is a Banach
space with the sup norm. Fix a ∈ X, and for each x ∈ X define φ(x) : X → R by
φ(x)(t) = d(x, t) − d(t, a).
Then
|φ(x)(t)| ≤ d(x, a),
so we have kφ(x)k ≤ d(x, a). Thus φ(x) ∈ B(X). For x, y ∈ X we have
  
φ(x) − φ(y) (t) = d(x, t) − d(t, a) − d(y, t) − d(t, a) = d(x, t) − d(y, t),
and it follows that
kφ(x) − φ(y)k ≤ d(x, y).
On the other hand,

φ(x) − φ(y) (y) = d(x, y) − d(y, y) = d(x, y),
so in fact we must have kφ(x) − φ(y)k = d(x, y). Thus φ is an isometric embedding of X into
B(X). Since B(X) is complete, the closure φ(X) is complete, and therefore is a completion
of X. 

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