Is the intersection of a nested sequence of compact subsets of a metric space equal to the smallest subset

general-topologyreal-analysis

Cantor's intersection theorem states

Let $S$ be a topological space. Given a decreasing nested sequence of bounded nonempty compact, closed subsets of S satisfying
$$C_1 \supset C_2 \supset C_3 \supset …$$
it follows that
$$ \left(\bigcap _{k}C_{k}\right)\neq \emptyset$$

Wouldn't the intersection of all $C_k$ simply just be the subset $C_N$ with the largest index?

Best Answer

It is true that for finite $N \in \mathbb{N}$, $\cap_{k=1}^{N} C_{k} = C_{N}$. But consider $C_{n} = \left[ -\frac{1}{n}, \frac{1}{n} \right] \subset \mathbb{R}$. Taking an infinite intersection, we have that $\cap_{k \in \mathbb{N}} C_{k} = \{ 0 \}$. Here, the notion of largest index does not quite make sense. In a general topological space, $\cap_{k} C_{k}$ is non-empty because one can construct a sequence which converges in the intersection by the closed property of the intersection.

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