What does it mean for a Metric to be complete?

246 Views Asked by At

I took a real analysis course recently and now that the class is over, I decided to go back and read some of the sections we skipped over. Right now I'm reading "Some Topological concepts in Metric Spaces" in Ross's Elementary Analysis.

They explained that a metric space $(S,d)$, where $S$ is the space and $d$ is the the metric, is complete if every Cauchy sequence in $S$ converges to some element in $S$.

There is a problem at the end of the section that defines two metrics, $d_1$ and $d_2$ on $\mathbb{R}^k$ and asks to:

Show $d_1$ and $d_2$ are complete metrics on $\mathbb{R}^k$

I was wondering if there is a separate definition for a complete metric, or if the question is asking if $(\mathbb{R}^k, d_1)$ and $(\mathbb{R}^k, d_2)$ are complete.

If the latter is the case, is it proper language to ask if the metric itself is complete on a space rather than asking if the metric space is compete?

I realize this is probably a bit nit-picky, but I like to pay close attention to wording to avoid confusion.

1

There are 1 best solutions below

0
On BEST ANSWER

A metric space is complete if every Cauchy sequence converges in the space. A metric is complete if the metric space it generates is complete.