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Baire Category Theorem

The document discusses the Baire Category Theorem and its application to proving that the pointwise limit of continuous functions is continuous on a dense subset. It also asks whether the countable union of nowhere dense sets could have positive measure or measure 1, and whether the pointwise limit of continuous functions must be Riemann integrable.

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Rin Van
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44 views

Baire Category Theorem

The document discusses the Baire Category Theorem and its application to proving that the pointwise limit of continuous functions is continuous on a dense subset. It also asks whether the countable union of nowhere dense sets could have positive measure or measure 1, and whether the pointwise limit of continuous functions must be Riemann integrable.

Uploaded by

Rin Van
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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baire category theorem

panxn20
August 2023

1 Baire Category Theorem


Let (S, d) be a complete metric space. Then
(a) If (Un ) is a sequence of dense open subsets of S, then the intersection
X = ∩∞ n=1 Un is dense in S.
(b) If (Fn ) is a sequence of closed subsets of S and if the union F = ∪∞
n=1 Fn
contains a nonempty open set, then so does at least one of the sets Fn .
(c) The union of a sequence of nowhere dense subsets of S has dense com-
plement.
(d) The space S is not a union of a sequence of nowhere dense subsets of S.

2 pointwise limit continuity


Theorem: Let X be a complete metric space, and Y a metric space. Let
f, f1 , f2 , . . . be continuous functions from X into Y such that fm (x) → f (x)
for every x ∈ X. Then, f is continuous on a dense subset of X.
For any ε > 0, let us define
[
O(ε) := {O ∈ OX : dY (f (x), f (y)) < ϵ, f oreach :x, y ∈ O}
which is an open subset of X. We have seen that
∞
\
{x ∈ X : f iscontinuousatx} = O(1/i).
i=1

In view of the Baire Category Theorem, therefore, the theorem will be proved if
we can show that O(ε) is a dense set in X for every ε > 0. To this end, let us fix
an ε > 0, and take an arbitrary nonempty open subset U of X. Our objective is
to show that O(ε) intersects U . (As U is arbitrary in OX , this will prove that
O(ε) is dense in X.) For each positive integer m, we define
n ε o
Sm := x ∈ X : dY (fk (x), fl (x)) ≤ f oreveryk, l ≥ m .
4
Note that S1 ⊆ S2 ⊆ · · ·, each Sm is closed in XS (because x 7→ dY (fk (x), fl (x)
∞
) is a continuous real map on X ), and X = Si . (The last claim follows

1
from the fact that (fm (x)) is Cauchy in X (for each x ∈ X ), being a convergent
sequence
S∞ in X.) Then (Sm ∩ U ) is a sequence of closed subsets of U such that
(Si ∩ U ) = U . Since U is an open subset of a complete metric space,
it is Baire, so, the interior of SM ∩ U (in U ) must be nonempty for some
positive integer M . Clearly, then, there is a nonempty open subset V of U with
V ⊆ SM ∩ U . Of course, as U is open in X, so is V .
We claim that O(ε) ∩ V is not empty. Fix an arbitrary point x∗ in V . Since
fM is continuous and V is open  in X, there is an open subset W of V such
that fM (W ) ⊆ BY fM (x∗ ) , 4ε , that is, dY (fM (x), fM (x∗ )) < ε/4 for every
x ∈ W . Moreover, for any x in SM , we have dY (fk (x), fM (x)) ≤ ε/4, so letting
k ↑ ∞ yields dY (f (x), fM (x)) ≤ ε/4. In particular, dY (f (x), fM (x)) ≤ ε/4
for every x ∈ V . By the triangle inequality, we get dY (f (x), fM (x∗ )) < ε/2 for
every x ∈ W . In turn, using this inequality (twice) and the triangle inequality
yields

dY (f (x), f (y)) ≤ dY (f (x), fM (x∗ )) + dY (fM (x∗ ) , f (y)) < ε

for every x, y ∈ W . Thus: W ⊆ O(ε), and hence O(ε) ∩ V is not empty, as we


desired.

3 My question
By the definition of the dense and nowhere dense set, one can then show that the
discontinuity point of f is of the first category (the countable union of nowhere
dense set). I am interested in the relation between of the first category and
measure. Can the countable union of nowhere dense set has positive measure
or even measure 1? I first consider the example of Riemann function, which is
discontinuous at every rational number only, a countable set with measure 0.
I cannot find any example such that the countable union of nowhere dense set
has positive measure.
Why I am interested in it: One famous Riemann integrable criteria is that:
f is Riemann integrable if and only if the discontinuous set of f has measure 0.
So I want to know whether the following claim is correct:
The pointwise limit of a series of continuous functions is Riemann integrable.
I have known that the converse is wrong: Not every Riemann integrable
function is the pointwise limit of a series of continuous functions, see
https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/3797728/are-riemann-integrable-
functions-the-pointwise-limit-of-continuous-functions
which is constructed by Cantor set.
However, it is harder to deal with the claim ”The pointwise limit of a series
of continuous functions is Riemann integrable.”

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