Philosophy 146: Metric Spaces

Metric space. A pair (M, d) consisting of a set M and a single-valued, positive real function d(f,g) defined for all elements f,g in M and having the following three properties: 1. Positive definite: d(f,g) 0 for all f,g in M, where d(f,g) = 0 iff f=g. 2. Symmetry: d(f,g) = d(g,f) 3. Triangle inequality: d(f,h) d(f,g) + d(g,h) d is a distance function. 1. says that the distance between distinct points must be positive. 2. says that the distance from f to g ought to be the distance from g to f. 3. says that in any triangle, one side is always less than the sum of two. Lots of different metrics can be put on a set X. For instance: Discrete metric: d(x,y) = 0 if x=y; d(x,y) = 1 otherwise Real line metric: d(x1,x2) = |x1 x2| Pythagorean metric: d((x1,y1), (x2,y2)) = (x1-x2)2 + (y1-y2)2 (for a plane) Taxi cab metric: d((x1,y1), (x2,y2)) = |x1 x2| + |y1 y2|

Homework
1. Draw a spacetime diagram of a ball quickly rolling across a room and bouncing back slowly. 2. Define a unit circle as the set of all points on a plane equidistant (with a distance of 1 unit) from a given point p. Draw what a circle looks like if one uses the taxi cab metric. 3. Explain why (with an example) the following function is NOT a metric on the plane: d((x1,y1), (x2,y2)) = (x1-x2)2 + (y1-y2)2