Nowhere dense set

A subset A of a topological space X is nowhere dense in X if and only if the interior of the closure of A is empty. The order of operations is important. For example, the set of rational numbers, as a subset of R has the property that the closure of the interior is empty, but it is not nowhere dense; in fact it is dense in R.

The surrounding space matters: a set A may be nowhere dense when considered as a subspace of a topological space X but not when considered as a subspace of another topological space Y. A nowhere dense set is always dense in itself.

Every subset of a nowhere dense set is nowhere dense, and the union of finitely many nowhere dense sets is nowhere dense. That is, the nowhere dense sets form an ideal of sets, a suitable notion of negligible set. The union of countably many nowhere dense sets, however, need not be nowhere dense. (Thus, the nowhere dense sets need not form a sigma-ideal.) Instead, such a union is called a meagre set or a set of first category. The concept is important to formulate the Baire category theorem.

Open and closed

• A nowhere dense set need not be closed (for instance, the set $\{1,\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{3},\dots\}$ is nowhere dense in the reals), but is properly contained in a nowhere dense closed set, namely its closure (which would add 0 to the set). Indeed, a set is nowhere dense if and only if its closure is nowhere dense.

• The complement of a closed nowhere dense set is a dense open set, and thus the complement of a nowhere dense set is a set with dense interior.

• The boundary of an open set is closed and nowhere dense.

• Every closed nowhere dense set is the boundary of an open set.

Nowhere dense sets with positive measure

A nowhere dense set is not necessarily negligible in every sense. For example, if X is the unit interval [0,1], not only is it possible to have a dense set of Lebesgue measure zero (such as the set of rationals), but it is also possible to have a nowhere dense set with positive measure.

For one example (a variant of the Cantor set), remove from [0,1] all dyadic fractions, i.e. fractions of the form a/2ⁿ in lowest terms for positive integers a and n, and the intervals around them: [a/2ⁿ − 1/2²ⁿ⁺¹, a/2ⁿ + 1/2²ⁿ⁺¹]. Since for each n this removes intervals adding up to at most 1/2ⁿ⁺¹, the nowhere dense set remaining after all such intervals have been removed, has measure of at least 1/2 (in fact just over 0.535... because of overlaps) and so in a sense represents the majority of the ambient space [0,1].

Generalizing this method, one can construct in the unit interval nowhere dense sets of any measure less than 1.

See also

• Baire space
• fat Cantor set

External links

• Some nowhere dense sets with positive measure