[Math] How to conclusively determine the interior of a set

general-topologyreal-analysis

I'm fairly confident I understand the meaning of the 'interior' of a set, but I can't figure out how to prove conclusively what said interior is for a given set. Consider this definition:

Let $S$ be a subset of $\mathbb{R}$. A point $x\in\mathbb{R}$ is an interior point of $S$ if there exists a neighborhood $N$ of $x$ such that $N\subseteq S$. The set of all interior points of $S$ is denoted by $\operatorname{int} S$ (or in some texts, $S^\circ$)

These examples were pulled from practice problems in my textbook, which only gives the final answer without showing why.

Given the set $[0,3]\cup(3,5)$, what is the interior? Intuitively I can just look at this and conclude that $[0,3]\cup(3,5)=[0,5)$, and the interior is everything but the boundary points — namely $(0,5)$.

This may be conclusive enough for such a simple example, but what about the sets $S=\{1/n\mid n\in\mathbb{N}\}$ and $T=\{r\in\mathbb{Q}\mid 0<r<\sqrt{2}\}$? I know that $S^0=T^0=\emptyset$, as all the points in $S$ and $T$ are isolated points. But I don't know how to back up that claim.

Taking $S$, using the definition I pasted above, I feel like I should try to show that for every $x\in S$, there does not exist a neighborhood of $x$ that is a subset of $S$, but I don't know how to proceed with this.

Best Answer

Given $[0,3]\cup (3,5)$, we will prove that the interior contains $(0,5)$. Let $b\in (0,5)$. Three cases:

  1. $b<3$. Then there is a neighborhood $(b-\epsilon, b+\epsilon)$ containing $b$ within $[0,3]$. We may find $\epsilon$ by taking $\min(b/2,(3-b)/2)$.

  2. $b=3$. $(1,4)\subseteq [0,3]\cup(3,5)$ works.

  3. $b>3$. Similar to case 1.

Now prove that no other points are in the interior.