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A uniformly continuous map from a dense subspace into a complete metric space extends uniquely to a uniformly continuous map on the whole space
Statement
Let be a metric space (Metric space: iff , symmetry, and the triangle inequality; pseudometric and ultrametric), let be dense in (Interior, closure, boundary, limit point, isolated point and dense subset of a metric space) and carry the subspace metric (Isometry, isometric embedding, and the subspace metric on a subset), let be a complete metric space (Complete metric space: every Cauchy sequence converges in the space), and let be uniformly continuous (Uniform continuity of a map of metric spaces: one serving every point). Then:
- There is a uniformly continuous with for every .
- is the only continuous map extending (Continuity of a map between metric spaces, at a point and globally, in the - form).
The map is constructed explicitly below, as the unique point common to the closures of the images of the shrinking balls around ; no value of is selected, each is determined.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A metric space , a dense , a complete metric space , a uniformly continuous , and a real . For and write , and , the closure taken in .
Density: , so for every and every real (Interior, closure, boundary, limit point, isolated point and dense subset of a metric space, Open ball, closed ball and sphere in a metric space).
Uniform continuity of : for every real there is a real with for all with ; distances inside are those of (Uniform continuity of a map of metric spaces: one serving every point, Isometry, isometric embedding, and the subspace metric on a subset).
Completeness of (Complete metric space: every Cauchy sequence converges in the space).
Cantor's intersection theorem in a complete space: a sequence of nonempty closed bounded sets, nested and with diameters tending to , has exactly one common point (In a complete metric space nested nonempty closed sets whose diameters tend to meet in exactly one point, and this property characterises completeness).
Closure by adherent points: means every ball around meets ; ; is closed and is the smallest closed superset of (Interior, closure, boundary, limit point, isolated point and dense subset of a metric space, The closure of a nonempty is , equals together with its limit points, and is the smallest closed superset, The metric topology: a set is open when every one of its points has a ball around it inside the set; closed means open complement).
Diameter: for nonempty bounded , , so any upper bound of those distances dominates the diameter; a nonempty set all of whose pairwise distances are below a real lies in a ball of radius around any of its points, hence is bounded (Bounded subset, diameter, distance from a point to a set, and distance between two sets in a metric space, Complete ordered field (least-upper-bound property), Open ball, closed ball and sphere in a metric space).
Reciprocals of naturals: is a positive real, decreasing in , and below every positive real from some index on (For every in a complete ordered field there is a natural with , Inverses of positives are positive, and reciprocation reverses order).
A point lies in the closure of exactly when some sequence in converges to it; this direction spends (A point lies in the closure of iff some sequence in converges to it, and a set is closed iff it is sequentially closed, The Axiom of Countable Choice (), Convergence of a sequence in a metric space: iff in ).
A continuous map is sequentially continuous (For a map of metric spaces the following agree: - continuity everywhere, preimages of open sets are open, preimages of closed sets are closed, sequential continuity, and ), limits in a metric space are unique (A sequence in a metric space has at most one limit), and a uniformly continuous map is continuous (Contraction implies Lipschitz implies uniformly continuous implies continuous; every Hölder map is uniformly continuous, and a Lipschitz map on a bounded space is Hölder for every exponent).
Triangle inequality (M3) and symmetry (M2) of a metric (Metric space: iff , symmetry, and the triangle inequality; pseudometric and ultrametric).
Proof
For every and the set is nonempty by [A1], so is nonempty and is a nonempty closed subset of .
The radii decrease, so and ; since is a closed superset of , minimality of the closure gives .
Fix a real , let be as in [A2] for , and let be a natural with ; note that depends on alone and not on .
Towards uniform continuity, let be real, let be as in [A2] for , and put . Fix a natural with .
For claim 2, let be continuous with for all , and let . Since there is a sequence in with in .
Let and . Then , so . Hence all pairwise distances in are below , so is bounded and .
Let , let and let be real. The balls and meet , so there are with and , whence . As was arbitrary, : were , the value would be positive and would give .
So for the set is nonempty, closed and bounded with .
Apply steps 1.3 to 4.1 with to get a natural such that is nonempty, closed and bounded for every and every . Then is nested by step 1.2, and its diameters tend to : given a real , the of step 1.3 satisfies for every , since then .
By [L1] and [A3] the intersection has exactly one element; and because the family is nested this intersection equals , a set defined without reference to . Define to be its unique element; this determines a function , and no choice is made, since the value is unique.
extends : for and every we have , so ; hence , and by uniqueness .
Let with . Since , the ball meets , so there is with ; likewise there is with .
Then , so , and therefore .
The real depended on alone, so is uniformly continuous; together with step 7.1 this establishes claim 1.
The map is continuous, being uniformly continuous, so and ; but for every , so one sequence in converges to both and , whence by uniqueness of limits. As was arbitrary, .
The map of step 6.1 is a uniformly continuous extension of and is the only continuous one, which is claims 1 and 2.
Remarks
- Why the construction avoids the Axiom of Choice, and where choice reappears. The obvious construction sets for a sequence in converging to . That defines only after a sequence has been selected at every point of at once, which is a choice over a set that need not be countable. The construction above never selects: is defined as the unique element of a set built from by a formula. Choice does appear, twice, and both times only inside a proof: is spent by In a complete metric space nested nonempty closed sets whose diameters tend to meet in exactly one point, and this property characterises completeness in step 6.1, and again by A point lies in the closure of iff some sequence in converges to it, and a set is closed iff it is sequentially closed in step 1.5, which produces one sequence for one point at a time.
- Completeness of the target is what makes the intersection nonempty, and it cannot be weakened. Without it the shrinking closed sets can have empty intersection, and there is then nothing to define to be; the inclusion read as a uniformly continuous map from the dense subspace of into has no continuous extension to for exactly that reason.
- Uniform continuity of is what makes the diameters shrink, and ordinary continuity does not suffice: step 1.3 chooses one before any point is fixed, and step 5.1 needs that same at every simultaneously. This is the same pressure point as in A uniformly continuous map sends Cauchy sequences to Cauchy sequences.
- The extension inherits the modulus, not the constants. The proof produces from the that supplies for , so a Lipschitz extends to a uniformly continuous ; that is in fact Lipschitz with the same constant is a separate argument, carried out for a concrete case in A Lipschitz function on extends uniquely to a Lipschitz function on with the same constant ↗.
Depends on
- In a complete metric space nested nonempty closed sets whose diameters tend to $0$ meet in exactly one point, and this property characterises completeness
- Complete metric space: every Cauchy sequence converges in the space
- Interior, closure, boundary, limit point, isolated point and dense subset of a metric space
- A point lies in the closure of $A$ iff some sequence in $A$ converges to it, and a set is closed iff it is sequentially closed
- Uniform continuity of a map of metric spaces: one $\delta$ serving every point
- The Axiom of Countable Choice ($\mathrm{AC}_\omega$)
- A sequence in a metric space has at most one limit
- Convergence of a sequence in a metric space: $x_k \to x$ iff $d(x_k, x) \to 0$ in $\mathbb{R}$
- For a map of metric spaces the following agree: $\varepsilon$-$\delta$ continuity everywhere, preimages of open sets are open, preimages of closed sets are closed, sequential continuity, and $f(\overline{A}) \subseteq \overline{f(A)}$
- Isometry, isometric embedding, and the subspace metric on a subset
- Bounded subset, diameter, distance from a point to a set, and distance between two sets in a metric space
- Open ball, closed ball and sphere in a metric space
- The metric topology: a set is open when every one of its points has a ball around it inside the set; closed means open complement
- Metric space: $d(x,y) = 0$ iff $x = y$, symmetry, and the triangle inequality; pseudometric and ultrametric
- The closure of a nonempty $A$ is $\{x : d(x,A) = 0\}$, equals $A$ together with its limit points, and is the smallest closed superset
- For every $\varepsilon > 0$ in a complete ordered field there is a natural $n \ge 1$ with $1/n < \varepsilon$
- Continuity of a map between metric spaces, at a point and globally, in the $\varepsilon$-$\delta$ form
- Contraction implies Lipschitz implies uniformly continuous implies continuous; every Hölder map is uniformly continuous, and a Lipschitz map on a bounded space is Hölder for every exponent
- Complete ordered field (least-upper-bound property)
- Inverses of positives are positive, and reciprocation reverses order
Used by
- A uniformly continuous real function on a subset D ⊆ ℝ extends uniquely to a uniformly continuous function on the closure of D Corollary
- A Lipschitz function on ℚ extends uniquely to a Lipschitz function on ℝ with the same constant Example
- A completion is unique up to a unique isometry fixing the original space, and uniformly continuous maps into complete spaces extend through it Theorem
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Sources
- Uniform continuity (Wikipedia) (standard reference, not scraped)
- Continuous linear extension (Wikipedia) (standard reference, not scraped)
- W. Rudin, Principles of Mathematical Analysis, 3rd ed., Ch. 4 (standard reference, not scraped)