Concept

Order topology

Summary
In mathematics, an order topology is a certain topology that can be defined on any totally ordered set. It is a natural generalization of the topology of the real numbers to arbitrary totally ordered sets. If X is a totally ordered set, the order topology on X is generated by the subbase of "open rays" for all a, b in X. Provided X has at least two elements, this is equivalent to saying that the open intervals together with the above rays form a base for the order topology. The open sets in X are the sets that are a union of (possibly infinitely many) such open intervals and rays. A topological space X is called orderable or linearly orderable if there exists a total order on its elements such that the order topology induced by that order and the given topology on X coincide. The order topology makes X into a completely normal Hausdorff space. The standard topologies on R, Q, Z, and N are the order topologies. If Y is a subset of X, X a totally ordered set, then Y inherits a total order from X. The set Y therefore has an order topology, the induced order topology. As a subset of X, Y also has a subspace topology. The subspace topology is always at least as fine as the induced order topology, but they are not in general the same. For example, consider the subset Y = {–1} ∪ {1/n}n∈N in the rationals. Under the subspace topology, the singleton set {–1} is open in Y, but under the induced order topology, any open set containing –1 must contain all but finitely many members of the space. Though the subspace topology of Y = {–1} ∪ {1/n}n∈N in the section above is shown to be not generated by the induced order on Y, it is nonetheless an order topology on Y; indeed, in the subspace topology every point is isolated (i.e., singleton {y} is open in Y for every y in Y), so the subspace topology is the discrete topology on Y (the topology in which every subset of Y is an open set), and the discrete topology on any set is an order topology.
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.