Every compact set is bounded end close

May 2, 2023

Lets prove that if (M, d) is a metric space ,let be S ⊆ M a compact subset, hence it is bounded
and close.
Let’s first defined what is a compact set. Let be uα a bunch open sets such that :
[
S⊆ uα
α

If S is compact, we can find a finite collection of uα such that :

N
[
S⊆ ui
i=1

Giving this definition, lets proof that if S is a compact subset so it is bounded.

1. Compact sets is bounded

Lets take some point p in S and draw balls of different radius around this point :

So we can write :
∞
[
S⊆ Bn (p) = M
i=1

But S is compact, so by definition we have a finite collection of Bn (p) such that :

S ⊆ Bn1 (p) ∪ Bn2 (p) ∪ · · · ∪ BnN (p)

Defining r = max(n1 , n2 , . . . , nN ) we get :

S ⊆ Br (p)

But that is the definition of bounded set. Hence, if S is compact set, so it is necessarily bounded.

1
2. Compact sets is close
Lets take a point x outside S and construct close balls around this point :

We can represent this balls like :

B 1 (x)
n

We are taking the closure of the open set B 1 (x), so the close ball is a close set. Lets now take
n
the complement of this ball :
C
B 1 (x)
n

The complement of the close ball is necessarily open, we will represent this open set by :
C
B 1 (x) = S 1 (x)
n n

We think about S 1 (x) as being the open set that contains all the points that are outside the
n
close ball. Hence :
∞
[
S ⊆ M \(x) = S 1 (x)
n
n=1

But S is compact, so by definition we have a finite collection of S 1 (x) such that :

n

S⊆S 1 (x) ∪ S 1 (x) ∪ . . . ∪ S 1 (x)

n1 n2 nN

Assume that these sequence of S 1 (x) are ordered. Therefore, we can write :
n

S 1 (x) ∪ S 1 (x) ∪ . . . ∪ S 1 (x) ⊆ S 1 (x)

n1 n2 nN n1

2
But this means that the complement of S is open, so S must be close.