Continuous and one-one map is open if images of subbase open sets are open sets

273 Views Asked by At

In Willard's General Topology, in the proof of 8.12, page 56 (Dover edition), I find this:

The aim is to prove that the map $e$ is an open map. $e$ is continuous and one-one as an hypothesis, and the author uses explicitly the one-one property (but I don't understand how).

e is continuous. [...] e is one-one. Finally, we will show e is an open map ; i.e., if U is open in X, then e(U) is open in e(X). Since e is one-one, it suffices to show e(U) is open whenever U is a subbasic open set.

How is it important that $e$ is one-one for that? To me if would seem that for any function $e$ we could check the property on a subbase of $U$ in order to prove that $e$ is open. As all the opens are finite intersection of unions of subbase sets in X, their images by $e$ are similar combinations in e(X), so that the open images of these combinations would also be opens in e(X).

What did I miss? Or is it an overlook from the author?

1

There are 1 best solutions below

1
On BEST ANSWER

Prove if $\mathcal{C}$ is a collection of sets and $f$ an injective function that
$$f[\bigcap \mathcal{C}] = \bigcap \{ f[C] : C \in \mathcal{C} \}$$

Let $\mathcal{C}$ be a finite collection of subbase sets.
Use the above to show that $f[\bigcap \mathcal{C}]$ is open. And such sets form a base for $X$.