Functional Analysis – Uncountable Basis and Separability

banach-spacesfunctional-analysishilbert-spaces

We know that a Hilbert space is separable if and only if it has a countable orthonormal basis.

What I want to ask is

If a Hilbert space has an uncountable orthonormal basis, does it mean that it is not separable? Or equivalently, does it imply that the Hilbert space does not have a countable basis?

I know that if a vector space has infinite number of linearly independent vectors then it cannot have a finite (Hamel) basis. But here we do not deal with Hamel basis but with a complete orthonormal set, do I cannot apply the usual techniques.

Any ideas?

Best Answer

Here's a brute-force approach that doesn't mention other bases:

The open balls of radius $\frac{1}{2\sqrt2}$ around the orthonormal basis vectors are disjoint. A countable set can't intersect them all if there are uncountably many, so it isn't dense, and the space isn't separable.

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