How statement and proof provenance work
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.
- AI-generated: a genuinely novel statement formulated by AI, with no source for the claim itself.
These labels describe origin, not correctness: citations and verification chips remain separate evidence.
and are metrics uniformly equivalent to , so every metric space carries a bounded metric with the same topology
Statement
Let be a metric space (Metric space: iff , symmetry, and the triangle inequality; pseudometric and ultrametric) and define, for ,
Both are well defined: (Nonnegativity of a metric is a consequence of the other axioms, not an axiom), so and is invertible, and the minimum of a two-element set of reals exists (Every nonempty finite set of reals has a maximum and a minimum, Maximum and minimum of a set). Then:
- and are metrics on .
- and for all ; hence and are bounded metric spaces (Bounded subset, diameter, distance from a point to a set, and distance between two sets in a metric space), and if then for both.
- and are each uniformly equivalent to , hence topologically equivalent to it (Topologically, uniformly and Lipschitz equivalent metrics on a set, Lipschitz equivalence implies uniform equivalence implies topological equivalence).
Consequently every metric space carries a bounded metric with exactly the same topology, so boundedness cannot be read off the topology alone.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A metric space , points , a real , and the two functions and , defined for reals , so that and .
A metric is nonnegative and satisfies (M1), (M2), (M3) (Nonnegativity of a metric is a consequence of the other axioms, not an axiom, Metric space: iff , symmetry, and the triangle inequality; pseudometric and ultrametric).
The minimum of a two-element set of reals exists, is one of the two elements, and is a lower bound of both (Every nonempty finite set of reals has a maximum and a minimum, Maximum and minimum of a set).
(The multiplicative identity is positive); a sum of positives is positive and inequalities may be added, in the strict form of Order is preserved by adding a constant and by adding inequalities and, with the case of equality settled by totality, in the nonstrict form (Ordered field, Complete ordered field (least-upper-bound property)).
Inverses and order: gives , and gives (Inverses of positives are positive, and reciprocation reverses order); Inverses of positives are positive, and reciprocation reverses order states only those strict forms, so the nonstrict version used below, that gives , is that statement together with the case , in which the two inverses are equal, the order being total (Ordered field, Complete ordered field (least-upper-bound property)). Multiplying an inequality by a positive preserves it, in the strict form of Sign rules for products and monotonicity of multiplication and, with the same equality case, in the nonstrict form; and (Field).
Bounded subset and diameter: is bounded when it lies in some ball, and for nonempty bounded the diameter is the least upper bound of the distances, so any upper bound of those distances bounds the diameter (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, Suprema and infima are unique).
Uniform and topological equivalence, and the implication between them (Topologically, uniformly and Lipschitz equivalent metrics on a set, Lipschitz equivalence implies uniform equivalence implies topological equivalence).
Proof
Properties of on : it is one of and , so and ; exactly when , since ; it is nondecreasing, because for the value is or , and in both cases it is a lower bound of , hence at most ; and it is subadditive, since for either one of is , and then , or both are , and then .
Properties of on : here , so and , whence ; also gives ; exactly when ; is strictly increasing, because and gives , hence ; and it is subadditive, since for one has and , so .
Both and are symmetric, being applied to the symmetric function , and both vanish exactly on the diagonal, since exactly when and exactly when .
is a metric: (M1) and (M2) are step 1.3, and (M3) follows because with nondecreasing and subadditive on nonnegatives gives .
is a metric: identically, using that is increasing and subadditive on nonnegatives, .
Boundedness: and for all , so if then fixing any gives and , while is bounded outright; and is an upper bound of all the distances, so in both metrics when . This is claim 2.
is uniformly equivalent to : given , take , so that gives ; and take , so that forces , hence by [L2], hence .
is uniformly equivalent to : given , take , so that gives ; and take , so that forces , since would give by monotonicity.
Uniform equivalence implies topological equivalence, so and have exactly the metric topology of ; this completes claim 3.
Claims 1, 2 and 3 hold by steps 2.1 and 2.2, step 2.3, and steps 3.1, 3.2 and 4.1; hence every metric space carries a bounded metric inducing the same topology.
Remarks
- Two constructions rather than one, on purpose. is the shorter argument and is the one used by the counterexamples on the companion page; is strictly less than everywhere and is strictly increasing in , which makes it the better behaved of the two when the value of the metric is to be compared, and it is the form that generalises to countable products.
- Neither is Lipschitz equivalent to when is unbounded. A Lipschitz bound with would force everywhere, which fails as soon as takes arbitrarily large values; the real line is the witness (On the metrics and are uniformly but not Lipschitz equivalent ↗).
- Boundedness is therefore not a topological property, which is recorded as FALSE: boundedness of a metric space is determined by its topology with the real line as witness.
- The bound need not be an equality, and the two constructions differ on when it is. For a one-point space both new metrics are identically . For the bound is attained as soon as takes some value , since then takes the value itself, and the companion page computes one such case. For the value is never taken at all, by claim 2, so on a space where is bounded the diameter in is strictly below : for instance on a two-point space with the new distance is .
Depends on
Metric space: iff , symmetry, and the triangle inequality; pseudometric and ultrametric
Topologically, uniformly and Lipschitz equivalent metrics on a set
Lipschitz equivalence implies uniform equivalence implies topological equivalence
Bounded subset, diameter, distance from a point to a set, and distance between two sets in a metric space
Order is preserved by adding a constant and by adding inequalities
Inverses of positives are positive, and reciprocation reverses order
Maximum and minimum of a set
Every nonempty finite set of reals has a maximum and a minimum
Sign rules for products and monotonicity of multiplication
The multiplicative identity is positive
Nonnegativity of a metric is a consequence of the other axioms, not an axiom
Open ball, closed ball and sphere in a metric space
Field
Ordered field
Complete ordered field (least-upper-bound property)
Suprema and infima are unique