Section 5: Problem 5 Solution
Working problems is a crucial part of learning mathematics. No one can learn topology merely by poring over the definitions, theorems, and examples that are worked out in the text. One must work part of it out for oneself. To provide that opportunity is the purpose of the exercises.
James R. Munkres
Which of the following subsets of 
 can be expressed as the cartesian product of subsets of 
?
(a) 
.
(b) 
.
(c) 
.
(d) 
.
It is possible iff the set of the possible values of 
 does not depend on the specific values of other 
 in the sense that, given all values of 
 for 
, the set of possible values of 
 should be either the empty set or a fixed set 
 (compare to Exercise 10 of §1). If this is true, then the set 
. So, we get the positive answer in (a), (b) and (c). Namely, we have 
, 
 where 
, and 
, respectively. In (d), when 
, 
 can take values from 
 only, so the set in (d) is not a cartesian product.
