Proof of Complements, Unions and Intersections of Closed Sets in a Topological Space
lemmalem:closed-sets-topology-2026aThroughout, a subset is closed in exactly when , and we refer to the three numbered conditions in the definition of a topological space.
Claim 1. We have and . By condition 1, both and belong to . Hence and , so and are closed in .
Claim 2. Let and let be closed in . Let denote the set of all such that for at least one . A point fails to lie in precisely when for every , that is, precisely when for every such . Therefore
Each set belongs to , because is closed in . By condition 3 the displayed intersection belongs to , so is closed in .
Claim 3. Let be a set and let be a family of subsets of with closed in for every . Let denote the set of all such that for every . A point fails to lie in precisely when there is some with , that is, with . Therefore
The assignment is a family of subsets of indexed by , and each of its members belongs to because is closed in . By condition 2 the displayed union belongs to , so is closed in . In the degenerate case this argument still applies: then and the displayed union is , which belongs to by condition 1.
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Prerequisites
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