4. The plane and other spaces

Abstract

Most functions have several numerical inputs and produce more than one numerical output. But even generally continuity requires that we can constrain the difference in outputs by suitably constraining the difference in inputs. ‘The plane and other spaces’ asks more general questions such as ‘is the distance a car has travelled a continuous function of its speed?’ This is a subtle question as neither the input nor output are numbers, but rather functions of time, with input the speed function s(t) and output the distance function d(t). In answering the question, it considers continuity between metric spaces, equivalent metrics, open sets, convergence, and compactness and connectedness, the last two being topological invariants that can be used to differentiate between spaces.