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Space (Alias) Suggestion: More aliases for Hilbert space $\ell^2$ (S30) #956

Description

@GeoffreySangston

Space (Alias) Suggestion

S30 could have 'Unit sphere in $\ell^2$', and/or 'Closed unit ball in $\ell^2$', and/or closed half space in $\ell^2$ as aliases. Alternatively / in addition, the list of representatives in the description of S30 could include references to these.

Rationale

This is stated on this mo page.

Also, it just seems fascinating that these are all homeomorphic.

Other remarks

#863 (comment) is a recent discussion about merging two spaces into S30.

#829 (comment) is an 'Issue' thread associated to the previous thread.

Note that $S^\infty = \bigcup_{n = 0}^\infty S^n$ with the weak topology / topology coherent with $\{S^n : n \ge 0\}$ is not homeomorphic to S30 because it is not a Baire space, so I think $S^\infty$ wouldn't be a good alias.

Activity

  1. david20000813 commented on Nov 28, 2024

    @david20000813
    Collaborator

    This does sound interesting. I agree with adding these. I do wonder, out of curiosity, since $\ell^2$ is homeomorphic to any infinite-dimensional separable Banach space, does this result holds for those as well? Namely, is S30 also homeomorphic to the unit ball/unit sphere of all infinite-dimensional separable Banach space?

  2. StevenClontz commented on Nov 28, 2024

    @StevenClontz
    Member

    Hot take (so maybe I'm overlooking something): we might consider just noting these characterizations in the space description, rather than having a dozen different aliases.

  3. david20000813 commented on Nov 28, 2024

    @david20000813
    Collaborator

    In that case I'll write a PR adding these homeomorphic spaces to the description.

  4. david20000813 commented on Nov 28, 2024

    @david20000813
    Collaborator

    Ah, I've checked the reference in the MO post. As I suspected, the result about closed unit ball and unit sphere works for all separable Banach spaces. The only issue is the reference itself. I cannot find a DOI number of a zbMATH reference number for it, and I haven't been able to find any other reference for this fact. Is it possible to cite a reference with neither a DOI nor a zbMATH reference number?

  5. danflapjax commented on Nov 29, 2024

    @danflapjax
    Collaborator

    There's an MR reference number for it: https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=0478168

  6. david20000813 commented on Nov 29, 2024

    @david20000813
    Collaborator

    @danflapjax Thanks!

  7. GeoffreySangston commented on Nov 29, 2024

    @GeoffreySangston
    CollaboratorAuthor

    @StevenClontz

    What's wrong with the following? Add/remove the most essential aliases (David added some more to the description.) It seems worth talking about rather than immediately shutting this down.

    $\mathbb{R}^\omega$, $C([0, 1])$, Unit sphere of $\ell^2$, Closed unit ball of $\ell^2$

  8. StevenClontz commented on Nov 29, 2024

    @StevenClontz
    Member

    @GeoffreySangston I'm not sure if I understand the question, but if you're referring to my "hot take" above, the reason I called it a "hot take" is because I haven't considered it carefully. 🙃 So I don't think I'm trying to shut down anything.

  9. GeoffreySangston commented on Nov 29, 2024

    @GeoffreySangston
    CollaboratorAuthor

    @StevenClontz Okay, well thank you for that clarification. The question is, what should the list of aliases be for this homeomorphism class of spaces? As I understand it, the search only considers the aliases. The following only returns the circle right now:

    https://topology.pi-base.org/spaces?text=sphere

    (Aside: Maybe it should also return https://topology.pi-base.org/spaces/S000001, $S^0$, Zero-dimensional sphere)

    It seems like there's a decently sized literature about unit spheres of Banach spaces. If it didn't have the misfortune of being homeomorphic to $\ell^2$, then the unit sphere of $\ell^2$ could be justifiably added as its own space. (It should not be, I think.) An alias would be the best thing, except there's the aesthetic limitation of wanting a short list of aliases.

  10. StevenClontz commented on Nov 29, 2024

    @StevenClontz
    Member

    A UI enhancement might be to only list the first three(?) aliases in tabular results.

    Note that the description is considered, but isn't weighted heavily. From memory, I think we have name weighted 1, aliases weighted .7, and descriptions weighted .3.

  11. StevenClontz commented on Nov 29, 2024

    @StevenClontz
    Member

    I'm not well versed in this particular space so I'll rely on others in the community to decide specifics, but we should consider a general policy for how to handle a space that has several different names and characterizations.

  12. prabau commented on Nov 29, 2024

    @prabau
    Collaborator

    General question. Is it really important to have all the possible non-obvious homeomorphic versions of a space listed as aliases?

    Just to take separable Banach spaces, there are zillions of them. What's the harm if someone's favorite Banach space is not listed there? They will not be aware that their space is not already in pi-base. But most functional analysts will not care about that. And those who do care will probably know about Anderson-Kadec, so will have a good idea where to look. No harm done really.

    On the other hand, the list in the description itself is pretty informative and nice to have.

  13. GeoffreySangston commented on Nov 29, 2024

    @GeoffreySangston
    CollaboratorAuthor

    @prabau

    General question. Is it really important to have all the possible non-obvious homeomorphic versions of a space listed as aliases?

    You're asking an extreme question. The answer is obviously not. No discussion required. The actual question which should be asked is, which of the aliases are worth having?

  14. prabau commented on Nov 29, 2024

    @prabau
    Collaborator

    Well said.

  15. GeoffreySangston commented on Nov 29, 2024

    @GeoffreySangston
    CollaboratorAuthor

    I apologize I was short tempered there. It was wrong of me to be so rude. I felt mischaracterized by @StevenClontz's first message which used the word "dozen", and your message which used the word "all". I think I'll log off for now.

  16. prabau commented on Nov 29, 2024

    @prabau
    Collaborator

    Please, no need to apologize. My comment was extreme indeed, and you set me right. In any case, I think your summarizing question is a good one: which of the aliases are worth having?

    Your suggestion of keeping

    $\mathbb{R}^\omega$, $C([0, 1])$, Unit sphere of $\ell^2$, Closed unit ball of $\ell^2$

    seems a good one. It is a list of a few cases, surprisingly non-obvious and interesting. And it's also short enough, thanks to the use of symbols.

  17. david20000813 commented on Nov 29, 2024

    @david20000813
    Collaborator

    I personally don’t have a strong preference either way, though I do find the list of aliases @GeoffreySangston is suggesting to be a reasonably good choice. Since this seems to be the consensus for now, I’ll add this to #975.

  18. felixpernegger commented on May 25, 2026

    @felixpernegger
    Collaborator

    This is implemented now.

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