In topology and related fields of mathematics, a set U is called open if, intuitively speaking, you can "wiggle" or "change" any point x in U by a small amount in any direction and still be inside U. In other words, x can't be on the edge of U.
As a typical example, consider the open interval (0,1) consisting of all real numbers x with 0 < x < 1. If you "wiggle" such an x a little bit (but not too much), then the wiggled version will still be a number between 0 and 1. Therefore, the interval (0,1) is open. However, the interval (0,1] consisting of all numbers x with 0 < x ≤ 1 is not open; if you take x = 1 and wiggle a tiny bit in the positive direction, you will be outside of (0,1].
Note that whether a given set U is open depends on the surrounding space, the "wiggle room". For instance, the set of rational numbers between 0 and 1 (exclusive) is open in the rational numbers, but it is not open in the real numbers. Note also that "open" is not the opposite of "closed". First, there are sets which are both open and closed (called clopen sets); in R and other connected spaces, only the empty set and the whole space are clopen, while the set of all rational numbers smaller than √2 is clopen in the rationals. Also, there are sets which are neither open nor closed, such as (0,1] in R.
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The concept of open sets can be formalized in various degrees of generality.
A subset U of Euclidean n-space Rn is called open if, given any point x in U, there exists a real number ε > 0 such that, given any point y in Rn whose Euclidean distance from x is smaller than ε, y also belongs to U.
Intuitively, ε measures the size of the allowed "wiggles".
A subset U of a metric space (M,d) is called open if, given any point x in U, there exists a real number ε > 0 such that, given any point y in M with d(x,y) < ε, y also belongs to U.
This generalizes the Euclidean space example, since Euclidean space with the Euclidean distance is a metric space.
In topological spaces, the concept of openness is taken to be fundamental.
One starts with an arbitrary set X and a family of subsets of X satisfying certain properties that every "reasonable" notion of openness is supposed to have.
(Specifically: the union of open sets is open, the finite intersection of open sets is open, and in particular the empty set and X itself are open.)
Such a family T of subsets is called a topology on X, and the members of the family are called the open sets of the topological space (X,T).
This generalises the metric space definition:
If you start with a metric space and define open sets as before, then the family of all open sets will form a topology on the metric space.
Every metric space is hence in a natural way a topological space.
(There are however topological spaces which are not metric spaces.)
Every subset A of a topological space X contains a (possibly empty) open set; the largest such open set is called the interior of A.
It can be constructed by taking the union of all the open sets contained in A.
Given topological spaces X and Y, a function f from X to Y is continuous if the preimage of every open set in Y is open in X.
The map f is called open if the image of every open set in X is open in Y.
A manifold is called open if it is a manifold without boundary and if it is not compact.
This notion differs somewhat from the openness discussed above.Definitions
Euclidean space
Metric spaces
Topological spaces
Uses
Manifolds