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TheoremStatement: AI-adaptedProof: AI-generatedprecheck passjudge pass (z-ai/glm-5.2)audited 2026-07-27
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The first chip identifies the source of the statement or construction; the second identifies the source of its local proof or verification.

  • Literature-sourced: the exact statement appears in a cited source; only wording and notation differ.
  • AI-adapted: a semantically identical restatement of literature-sourced material, modulo indexing, notation, and boundary cases adopted by the library.
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A family is a basis for a unique topology iff it covers the set and every point of an intersection of two members lies in a member inside that intersection; finite intersections of any subbasis form a basis

Statement

Let X be a set, and for B⊆P(X) write

TB:={ U⊆X:for every x∈U there is B∈B with x∈B⊆U }.

  1. B is a basis for some topology on X (Basis and subbasis for a topology, and the topology generated by a family of sets) if and only if

    • (B1) ⋃B=X, and
    • (B2) for all B1,B2∈B and every x∈B1∩B2 there is B3∈B with x∈B3⊆B1∩B2.

    When (B1) and (B2) hold, that topology is unique: it is TB, which is also exactly the family of all unions of subfamilies of B.

  2. Let S⊆P(X) be an arbitrary family and let BS be the family of intersections of finitely many members of S. Then BS satisfies (B1) and (B2), and TBS=⟨S⟩, the topology generated by S. So the finite intersections of any subbasis form a basis for the topology it generates.

The nullary intersection: this library takes the empty intersection to be X. In claim 2 the phrase "finitely many" includes none, and the intersection of the empty subfamily of S is X, because the defining condition "lies in every member of the empty family" holds of every point of X. Hence X∈BS for every S, including S=∅, and no covering hypothesis is imposed on a subbasis. The competing convention takes only nonempty finite intersections and compensates by requiring ⋃S=X; under it claim 2 holds verbatim once that hypothesis is added, and the two conventions differ only in which of the two devices supplies (B1). The choice made here is recorded again among this page's conventions, and it is the reason ⟨∅⟩ comes out as the indiscrete topology {∅,X} rather than being undefined.

Facts & Assumptions

Given: A set X; a family B⊆P(X) and the family TB displayed above; a family S⊆P(X) and the family BS:={ S1∩⋯∩Sn:n∈N, S1,…,Sn∈S }, where the value at n=0 is the empty intersection X.

[L1]

Topology axioms (T1) ∅,X∈T, (T2) closure under arbitrary unions, (T3) closure under binary intersections, and the fact that (T3) iterated gives every intersection of n≥1 open sets (Topology on a set, open and closed sets, clopen sets, the closed-set axiomatisation, and the coarser/finer comparison).

[L2]

B is a basis for T when B⊆T and every U∈T is a union of members of B; equivalently, when for every U∈T and x∈U there is B∈B with x∈B⊆U (Basis and subbasis for a topology, and the topology generated by a family of sets).

[L3]

⟨S⟩ is a topology on X, contains S, and is contained in every topology on X that contains S (Basis and subbasis for a topology, and the topology generated by a family of sets).

Proof

technique · direct
1.1

Assume (B1) and (B2).

assume-hyp
1.2

Assume instead that B is a basis for some topology T on X.

assume-hyp
1.3

X∈BS, being the value of the empty intersection, and S⊆BS, each S∈S being the intersection of the one-term list S.

given
1.4

BS is closed under binary intersections: the intersection of S1∩⋯∩Sn with S1′∩⋯∩Sm′ is the intersection of the concatenated list, again a list of finitely many members of S.

given
1.5

B⊆TB always, since for B∈B and x∈B the set B itself witnesses the defining condition; and every U∈TB equals ⋃{ B∈B:B⊆U }, since each such B lies in U and each x∈U lies in one of them.

givenL2
2.1

Under the assumption of step 1.1: ∅∈TB, the defining condition being vacuous, and X∈TB, since by (B1) every x∈X lies in some B∈B and every subset of X satisfies B⊆X; so (T1) holds for TB.

step 1.1L1
2.2

Under the assumption of step 1.1: if S′⊆TB and x∈⋃S′, then x∈U for some U∈S′, and membership of U supplies B∈B with x∈B⊆U⊆⋃S′; so ⋃S′∈TB and (T2) holds.

step 1.1L1
2.3

Under the assumption of step 1.1: if U,V∈TB and x∈U∩V, fix B1,B2∈B with x∈B1⊆U and x∈B2⊆V; then x∈B1∩B2, and (B2) supplies B3∈B with x∈B3⊆B1∩B2⊆U∩V, so U∩V∈TB and (T3) holds.

step 1.1L1choose
2.4

Under the assumption of step 1.2: X∈T by (T1), so [L2] gives for each x∈X a member B∈B with x∈B⊆X, whence ⋃B=X, which is (B1); and for B1,B2∈B⊆T the set B1∩B2 is open by (T3), so [L2] gives for each x∈B1∩B2 a member B3∈B with x∈B3⊆B1∩B2, which is (B2).

step 1.2L1L2
2.5

Under the assumption of step 1.2: T=TB. Indeed U∈T implies U∈TB by the second form of [L2]; and conversely U∈TB makes U a union of members of B⊆T by step 1.5, hence open by (T2).

step 1.2step 1.5L1L2
2.6

By steps 1.3 and 1.4, BS satisfies (B1), since X∈BS forces ⋃BS=X, and (B2), since B1∩B2∈BS may be taken as B3.

step 1.3step 1.4
3.1

Steps 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3 make TB a topology on X whenever (B1) and (B2) hold, and step 1.5 then makes B a basis for it and identifies TB with the family of unions of subfamilies of B; so (B1) and (B2) are sufficient.

step 2.1step 2.2step 2.3step 1.5L1L2
4.1

Step 2.4 shows (B1) and (B2) are necessary, and step 2.5 shows that any topology having B as a basis equals TB, which is the asserted uniqueness; with step 3.1 this proves claim 1.

step 2.4step 2.5step 3.1
4.2

By step 2.6 and step 3.1 applied to BS, the family TBS is a topology on X with basis BS, and it contains S by step 1.3 and step 1.5.

step 1.3step 1.5step 2.6step 3.1
5.1

Let T′ be any topology on X with S⊆T′; then BS⊆T′, because X∈T′ by (T1) covers the empty intersection and (T3) iterated covers the intersections of n≥1 members of S, and hence TBS⊆T′ by (T2), every member of the former being a union of members of BS.

step 1.5step 4.2L1
6.1

By steps 4.2 and 5.1 the topology TBS contains S and is contained in every topology containing S, so it is the coarsest such topology, that is TBS=⟨S⟩; with step 2.6 this proves claim 2.

step 2.6step 4.2step 5.1L3∎

Remarks

  • What (B1) and (B2) are not. (B2) does not say that B is closed under intersections; it says only that the intersection of two members is a union of members. The basis of open intervals of R satisfies (B2) outright, since an intersection of two open intervals is an open interval or empty, whereas the basis of half-open intervals of the Sorgenfrey line uses the same closure property; a basis of open balls in a metric space uses the weaker form in an essential way.

  • The subbasis clause is what makes generation computable. The definition of ⟨S⟩ as an intersection of topologies says nothing about what its members look like; claim 2 says they are exactly the unions of finite intersections of members of S, which is how every generated topology in this library is actually described.

  • A family may be a basis for at most one topology, but it is a subbasis for at most one as well, and the two roles differ: S is a subbasis for ⟨S⟩ and a basis for it exactly when S already satisfies (B1) and (B2).

Depends on

Used by

Dependency tree · two levels

3 results within two dependency steps of this one, each drawn at its shortest distance from it. An arrow runs from a result to what uses it, so the chart reads left to right and ends at this result, which carries a heavier outline. Every node is a link to that result. Click elsewhere on the chart to enlarge it.

Sources