proceedings of the

american mathematical society

Volume 120, Number 3, March 1994

TYCHONOFF'S THEOREM

DAVID G. WRIGHT

(Communicated by James E. West)

Abstract. A simple proof of TychonofFs Theorem is given. The proof is, in

spirit, much like TychonofFs original proof, which is also given.

TychonofFs Theorem states that the arbitrary product of compact spaces is

compact. There are two standard proofs of this theorem found in topology
books. One proof uses Alexander's Lemma, which states that a space is compact
if every cover by a subbasis has a finite subcollection that covers [1, p. 139; 2,
p. 4]. An alternative proof by Bourbaki [1, p. 143; 3, pp. 232-233] uses a
formulation of compactness in terms of closed sets instead of open sets. Of
course, each of these proofs will show that the product of two compact spaces
is compact. However, in each case the proof is far more complicated than
any standard simple proof that the product of two compact spaces is compact.
Indeed, Munkres [3, p. 229] seems to think that the Tychonoff Theorem is a
"deep" theorem with no straightforward proof.
In this note we give two simple proofs that the product of two compact spaces
is compact. Each of these proofs generalizes easily to TychonofFs Theorem
using only the fact that any set can be well ordered. In the special case of the
countably infinite product of compact spaces, this is just ordinary mathematical
induction.
The first proof is TychonofFs original proof [4]. TychonofFs proof uses a
nontrivial alternative formulation of compactness that seems almost forgotten
among modern day topologists [2, p. 4]. The second proof uses an obvious for-
mulation of compactness that is only slightly different form the usual covering
definition. This proof is, in spirit, much like TychonofFs. A slight variation of
the second proof has been known and used by professors and students at the
University of Wisconsin for many (over thirty) years. But, to my knowledge, it
is almost unknown to others.

Received by the editors June 22, 1992; presented at the Spring Topology Conference, Columbia,
South Carolina, March 12, 1993.
1991MathematicsSubject Classification.Primary 54D30; Secondary 54B10.
This research was supported in part by NSF Grant DMS-9002657.
©1994 American Mathematical Society

985
986 d. g. wright

Definitions
For completeness, we provide definitions of products and the product topol-
ogy. Let {Xa\a e J} be a collection of sets. The product Ha€J Xa is defined
to be the collection of all functions f: J -* [JaeJ ^° sucn tnat f(°^ e %a ■
We often write / = (xa)a€j or simply (xa) where f(a) = xa . For each a
there is a projection function onto Xa , Pa: Y[aeJ Xa -> Xa defined by Pa(f) =
f(a). If each Xa is a topological space, then the product topology on Y[aeJ Xa
is the smallest topology, which makes the projection functions continuous. Let
F be a finite subset of J, and for each a e F let Ua be an open subset of Xa .
Sets of the form U = f)aeF P~x(Ua) form a basis for the product topology.

Formulations of compactness
Definition. A topological space X is said to be compact if every open covering
of X has a finite subcollection that covers.
The following are equivalent formulations of compactness:
(A) A topological space X is compact if and only if for each collection of open
sets with the property that no finite subcollection covers there is a point x e X
so that x is not covered by the collection of open sets.
(B) A topological space X is compact if and only if for each collection of closed
subsets of X with the finite intersection property (the intersection offinitely many
elements of the collection is nonempty) the intersection of all elements of the
collection is nonempty.
Definition. Let E be a subset of a topological space. We say that a limit point
x of E is a perfect limit point of E if for every neighborhood U of x the
cardinality of U n E is the same as the cardinality of E.
(C) A topological space X is compact if and only if each infinite subset E of X
has a perfect limit point.
The proofs of (A) and (B) are immediate. Alexander's Lemma uses (A). The
Bourbaki proof uses (B). Our simple proof uses (A). Tychonoff used (C), and
this fact requires some elementary cardinal arithmetic, which probably explains
why it is not well-known. We give a proof here for completeness.
Proof of (C). Suppose X is compact and E is an infinite set with no perfect
limit point. For each point x of X choose a neighborhood Ux so that the
cardinality of Ux f\E is less than the cardinality of E. A finite subcollection
UXl, UXl,..., UXn covers X. Then E is the finite union of UXinE. But the
finite union of sets of cardinality less than E must also have cardinality less
than E, which is a contradiction.
Suppose every infinite set has a perfect limit point. If X fails to be compact,
there is an infinite collection {Ua\a e J} of open subsets of X which covers
X and so that no finite subcollection covers. We may also assume that the
set J has the minimum cardinality with this property. We further suppose
that J is well ordered so that for each a the cardinality of {B e J\B < a}
is less than the cardinality of J and Ua (L [}{Up\B < a}. We define a set
E = {xa\a e J} so that xa e Ua\\J{Up\B < a}. The cardinality of E is the
same as the cardinality of J. If x is a point of X, then x lies in some Ua ,
 TYCHONOFFSTHEOREM 987

but the cardinality of Uaf\E is less than the cardinality of E, contradicting

the fact that every infinite set has a perfect limit point.

Tychonoff's proof
Theorem. Let X and Y be compact spaces then 1x7 is compact.
Proof. Let E be an infinite subset of X x Y. We first show that there is an
a e X so that for each neighborhood U of a the cardinality of (UxY)nE is
the same as the cardinality of E. If no such a exists, then for each x e X there
exists an open set UX containing x so that (Ux x Y)r\E has cardinality less
than E. By compactness a finite subcollection UXl, UX2,..., UXmcovers X.
Hence, E = (Xx Y)nE = ((UXlUUX2U---UUXm)xY)r\E = (J?=x((UXixY)nE).
This is a contradiction since the infinite set E cannot be written as the finite
union of sets of cardinality less than E.
Similarly we can show that there is a b e Y so that, for each basic open set
of the form U x V containing (a, b), (U x V) n E has the same cardinality
as E. This implies that (a, b) is a perfect limit point of E, so X x Y is
compact.

The simple proof

Theorem. Let X and Y be compact spaces then 1x7 is compact.
Proof. Let 2* be a collection of open sets of 1x7 so that no finite subcollec-
tion of 2? covers. In a manner similar to the above proof, we first show that
there is an a e X so that for each neighborhood U of a no finite subcollection
of 2? covers U xY. We then show that there is a b e Y so that for each basic
open set of the form U x V containing (a, b) no finite subcollection of 2>
covers U x V. Thus the point (a, b) is not covered by any element of %?, and
we see that 1x7 is compact.
TychonofFs Theorem. Let {Xa\a e J} be a collection of compact topological
spaces. Then the product YlaeJ Xa is compact.
Each of the preceding proofs generalizes easily. We generalize the second
proof.
Proof. We assume that J is well ordered and that a covering 2? is given so that
no finite subcollection of 2? covers. Inductively define ay e Xy so that, if U is
any basic open set containing Y[a<y{aa} x \~[a>yXa , then no finite subcollection
of 2* covers U. Thus the point (aa) is not covered by any element of 2> .
Hence, the product is compact.

References
1. J. L. Kelley, General topology,Van Nostrand, New York, 1955.
2. K. Kuratowski, Topology,Vol. II, Academic Press, New York, 1968.
3. J. R. Munkres, Topologya first course, Prentice-Hall, EnglewoodCliffs,NJ, 1975.
4. A. Tychonoff, Uber die topologische Erweiterung von Raumen, Math. Ann. 102 (1929),
544-561.

Department of Mathematics, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602

E-mail address: Wrightfimath. byu. edu