Lecture 3 : Complete metric space

Definition 1. A sequence {xn } in a metric space (X, d) is said to be a Cauchy

sequence if for every  > 0 there is an N ∈ N such that d(xn , xm ) <  for all
n, m ≥ N . In other words, the further along the sequence one goes, the closer
the point in the sequences are.

Definition 2. If a metric space has the property that every Cauchy sequences
converges to a point in X then the space is said to be complete metric space.

Proposition 1. Let (X, d) be a metric space and (Y, d|Y ×Y ) be a subspace of

(X, d). If (Y, d|Y ×Y ) is complete, then Y is closed in X. Conversely, suppose
that (X, d) is a complete metric space and Y is a closed subset of X. Then the
subspace (Y, d|Y ×Y ) is also complete.

Proposition 2. Every metric space has a completion (unique up to an isometry).

Definition 3. Suppose that {x(k) } is a sequence of points in a metric space (X, d).
Suppose that k1 , k2 , . . . is a sequence of positive integers such that k1 < k2 < . . ..
Then, the sequence {x(kj ) } is a subsequence of original sequence {x(k) }.

Example: The sequence {( k12 , k12 )}∞ 2

k=1 in R is a subsequence of the sequence

{( k1 , k1 )}∞ 2
k=1 . Here kj = j .

Lemma 1. Let {x(k) } be a sequence of points in a metric space (X, d) which

converges to some limit x0 . Then, every subsequence {x(kj ) }∞
j=1 of that sequence

also converges.

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Lemma 2. Let {x(k) } be a sequence of points in a metric space (X, d). The
sequence {x(k) } converges if and only if every subsequence of that sequence also
converges and also converges to the same point.

Lemma 3. Let {x(k) } be a Cauchy sequence of points in a metric space (X, d).
Suppose that there is a subsequence {x(kj ) } of this sequence which converges to a
limit x ∈ X. Then, the original sequence also converges to the same point.