Discrete metric and topology

Metric space definition

Let [ilmath]X[/ilmath] be a set. The discrete metric, or trivial metric is the metric defined as follows:

• [math]d:X\times X\rightarrow \mathbb{R}_{\ge 0} [/math] with [math]d:(x,y)\mapsto\left\{\begin{array}{lr}0 & \text{if }x=y \\1 & \text{otherwise}\end{array}\right.[/math]

However any strictly positive value will do for the [ilmath]x\ne y[/ilmath] case. For example we could define [ilmath]d[/ilmath] as:

• [math]d:(x,y)\mapsto\left\{\begin{array}{lr}0 & \text{if }x=y \\v & \text{otherwise}\end{array}\right.[/math]
  • Where [ilmath]v[/ilmath] is some arbitrary member of [ilmath]\mathbb{R}_{> 0} [/ilmath] - traditionally (as mentioned) [ilmath]v=1[/ilmath] is used.
    

Note: however in proofs we shall always use the case [ilmath]v=1[/ilmath] for simplicity