Unions And Intersections Of Opens Sets

Let's first prove that the union of any collection of open sets is open. Let $J$ be a set and for each $j\in J$ let $U_j$ be an open set. This gives us a way to talk about an arbitrary collection of open sets. We must prove that $\ds\bigcup_{j\in J}U_j$ is an open set. So pick $\ds x \in \bigcup_{j\in J}U_j$. Since $x$ is an element of this union, we know that $x\in U_j$ for some $j\in J$. Since $U_j$ is an open set, we know we can pick $\varepsilon>0$ such that $N_\varepsilon (x)\subseteq U_j$. Since we know $U_j\subseteq \ds\bigcup_{j\in J}U_j$, this means $N_\varepsilon(x)\subseteq \ds\bigcup_{j\in J}U_j$. Since this entire argument holds for any $x\in \ds\bigcup_{j\in J}U_j$, we have shown that $\ds\bigcup_{j\in J}U_j$ is an open set.

We now prove that the intersection of finitely many open sets is open. One way to prove this is to refer to a previous problem where we used induction to prove this is true. Here is another proof. Let $n\in\mathbb{N}$ and suppose $U_1, U_2, \ldots, U_n$ are open sets. Let $x\in \ds\bigcap_{i=1}^n U_i$. To complete this proof, we must produce a postive $\varepsilon$ and prove that $N_{\varepsilon}(x)\subseteq \ds\bigcap_{i=1}^n U_i$. Pick $i\in\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$. Because $x\in \ds\bigcap_{j=1}^n U_j$, we know that $x\in U_i$. We assumed that $U_i$ is open, which means we can pick $\varepsilon_i$ such that $N_{\varepsilon_i}(x)\subseteq U_i$. Since the argument above holds for each relevant $i$, we pick $\varepsilon_i$ for each relevant $i$ so that $N_{\varepsilon_i}(x)\subseteq U_i$. Now comes the key part, namely we let $\varepsilon$ be the smallest of these positive values, which gives $$\varepsilon = \min\{\varepsilon_1, \varepsilon_2, \ldots, \varepsilon_n \}.$$ Clearly $\varepsilon>0$ by construction. In addition, because of how we defined $\varepsilon$, we know $N_{\varepsilon}(x)\subseteq N_{\varepsilon_i}(x)$ for each relevant $i$. This fact, together with the fact that $N_{\varepsilon_i}(x)\subseteq U_i$ for each relevant $i$, means we know $N_{\varepsilon}(x)\subseteq U_i$ for each relevant $i$. This fact proves that $N_{\varepsilon}(x)\subseteq \ds\bigcap_{i=1}^n U_i$, as needed. Our proof is complete (and should look very similar to the proof for two open sets).

Notice that the min function in the proof above can fail to produce a positive $\varepsilon$ if there is an infinite number of open sets. There is no guarantee that a minimum will even exist when a set has infinitely many elements. The problem before this exercise clearly shows us that the intersection of infinitely many sets does not have to be open, as we proved $\ds\bigcap_{n=1}^\infty \left(0,1+\frac{1}{n}\right) =(0,1] $.