Isometry

Suppose and are metric spaces. Suppose that is a bijection such that Then is called an isometry between and . It preserves the distance between points. And we say that and are isometric.

Homeomorphism

Suppose and are topological spaces. If is a bijection and both and are continuous we say that is a homeomorphism and that and are homeomorphic.

e.g.

  • and are not homeomorphic because is compact but is not.
  • and are not homeomorphic. Otherwise, if is a homeomorphism, then it also gives a homeomorphism from . This is impossible, because is not connected while is connected.

Proposition

If is a homeomorphism then is open in if and only if is open in .

Proof is open in implies that is open in as is continuous; is open in implies that is open in as is continuous.

Topological Property

If some property of a metric space is such that if has property then so does every metric space that is homeomorphic to we say that is a topological property. More colloquially, these are properties that are only concerned with set-theoretic notions and/or open sets, rather than distances. e.g. Topological properties:

  • is open in .
  • is finite; countably infinite; or uncountable.
  • has a point such that is open in (an ‘isolated point’)
  • every continuous real-valued function on is bounded. Properties that are not topological:
  • is bounded.