What ‘complete’ means in Hilbert Space

analysisfunctional-analysishilbert-spaceslinear algebraterminology

From my Professor's Lectures, a Hilbert Space is defined as an inner product space $\bigoplus$ complete. In the same lecture, 'complete' here means, a system $\{\varphi_j\}_{j=1}^\infty \subset V$ is complete if $\nexists g \in V\setminus\{0\} $ such that $g$ is perpendicular to $\varphi_j, \forall j $.

It is also explicitly stated that 'complete' here doesn't mean 'complete space' where all Cauchy sequences are convergent. However, in the proof for a lemma that states:

  • An orthonormal system $\{\varphi_j\}_{j=1}^\infty \subset V$ that is complete is a basis in $V$,

We came to a point where we proved that $S_n(f) = \sum_{k=1}^{\infty} C_k\varphi_k$ is a Cauchy sequence, and then my Professor said that because we're in a Hilbert Space (complete), thus $S_n(f)$ is convergent. Is there something I'm missing here? Are both definition of 'complete' true in Hilbert Spaces?

Best Answer

There's a notion of completeness of a metric space and a notion of completeness of a basis, and they're not the same thing. Hilbert spaces are defined to be, in particular, complete metric spaces. Completeness of a basis means something different. It means what you said, and another way of stating it is that the span of the given system is dense in the Hilbert space. So, one is an intrinsic property of the space itself and the other is a property of particular subspaces.

For the record, I think a more clear way to state completeness of a system than you did is that if $\langle g,\varphi_j\rangle=0$ for all $j$, then $g=0$.