Principles of Mathematical Analysis, Rudin, 3th ed, Chapter 4, Problem 15

Problem

Call a mapping of $X$ into $Y$ open if $f(V)$ is an open set in $Y$ whenver $V$ is an open set in $X$.

Prove that every continuous open mapping of $\mathbb{R}^1$ into $\mathbb{R}^1$ is monotonic.

Answer

Suppose $f:\mathbb{R} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ is an open mapping but not a monotonic function. Then, without loss of generality, there exists $a,b,c \in \mathbb{R}$ such that $a<b<c$, $f(a) < f(b)$, and $f(c) < f(b)$. Note that the interval $[a,c] \subset \mathbb{R}$ is compact, so there exists $p \in [a,c]$ such that $f(p) = \sup f([a,c])$. $p$ is an interior point of $[a,c]$ since $f$ does not attain a maximum at $a$ or $c$. Choose $\epsilon > 0$ such that $N_\epsilon(p) \subset (a,c)$. Then $f(N_\epsilon(p))$ is open because $f$ is an open mapping. For $f(p) \in f(N_\epsilon(p))$, we can choose $\epsilon_1>0$ such that $N_{\epsilon_1}(f(p)) \subset f(N_\epsilon(p))$. This means $f(q) > f(p)$ for some $q \in N_\epsilon(p) \subset [a,c]$, which is contradiction.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Principles of Mathematical Analysis, Rudin, 3th ed, Chapter 5, Problem 15

Principles of Mathematical Analysis, Rudin, 3th ed, Chapter 2, Problem 14

Elementary Classical Analysis, Marsden, 2nd ed, Chapter 4, Problem 28