General Topology – Space Connected but Not Path-Connected

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Consider the following two definitions:

Connected
: A topologiocal space X is connected if it is not the disjoint union of two open subsets, i.e. if X is a disjoint union of two open sets A and B, then A or B is empty set.

Path Connected
: A topological space X is path-connected if any two points in X can be joined by a continuous path.


So far I can picture, I think they should be equivalent. If X is connected iff it is path-connected. But, the Thm I got from lecture is just if X path connected then X is connected (The converse not necessarily true.)

Can anyone give me some picture of space which is connected but not path-connected? Just picture please, cuz I wanna grab the idea. I have already seen some examples like in connected but not path connected?, I cannot grab the idea if it (such space) consist of a single piece, then I couldn't make a continuous path from any two points.

Thank you 🙂

Best Answer

Others have mentioned the topologist's sine curve, that's the canonical example. But I like this one, though it is the same idea:

enter image description here

This is the image of the parametric curve $\gamma(t)=\langle (1+1/t)\cos t,(1+1/t)\sin t\rangle,$ along with the unit circle. There is no path joining a point on the curve with a point on the circle. Yet, the space is the closure of the connected set $\gamma((1,\infty))$, so it is connected.