4.

Discrete, induced and product metrics

MAU22200 - Advanced Analysis

https://www.maths.tcd.ie/∼zaitsev/Adv-2020
Dmitri Zaitsev zaitsev@maths.tcd.ie

Dmitri Zaitsev (Trinity College Dublin) 4. Discrete, induced and product metrics 1/3
Discrete and induced metrics

Examples (discrete metric defined on any set X )

(
1 x 6= y
d(x, y ) := ,
0 x =y
where all axioms (M1),(M2),(M3) are easy to verify. E.g. since d(x, y ) is
either 0 or 1, (M3) d(x, z) ≤ d(x, y ) + d(y , z) holds whenever either
d(x, y ) = 1 or d(y , z) = 1. The remaining case d(x, y ) = d(y , z) = 0 is
obvious with x = y = z implying d(x, z) = 0.

Examples (metric subspaces)

Let (X , dX ) be a metric space and Y ⊂ X is any subset. Then the
restriction of dX to Y × Y defines the induced metric dY on Y , with
obvious verification of all metric axioms (exercise). The pair (Y , dY ) is
called a metric subspace of (X , dX ).

Dmitri Zaitsev (Trinity College Dublin) 4. Discrete, induced and product metrics 2/3
Product metrics

Our construction of dp on Rk = R × · · · × R can be directly generalized to

products of arbitrary metric spaces (X1 , dX1 ), . . . , (Xk , dXk ).

Definition (Cartesian product of sets)

Recall that the (Cartesian) product X := X1 × · · · × Xk is the set of all
k-tuples x = (x1 , . . . , xk ) with xj ∈ Xj for each j.

For tuples x = (x1 , . . . , xk ), y = (y1 , . . . , yk ) ∈ X = X1 × · · · × Xk and

p ≥ 1, define
P 1/p
k p
dp (x, y ) := j=1 dXj (xj , yj ) , d∞ (x, y ) := maxkj=1 dXj (xj , yj ).
P P P
d1 (x, z) = j dXj (xj , zj ) ≤ j dXj (xj , yj )+ j dXj (yj , zj ) = d1 (x, y )+d1 (y , z)
Exercise. Show that dp is a metric on X for every 1 ≤ p ≤ ∞.

Dmitri Zaitsev (Trinity College Dublin) 4. Discrete, induced and product metrics 3/3