Open maps which are not continuous

Question

What is an example of an open map $(0,1) \to \mathbb{R}$ which is not continuous? Is it even possible for one to exist? What about in higher dimensions? The simplest example I've been able to think of is the map $e^{1/z}$ from $\mathbb{C}$ to $\mathbb{C}$ (filled in to be $0$ at $0$). There must be a simpler example, using the usual Euclidean topology, right?

Answer 1

Explicit examples are moderately difficult to construct, but it’s not too hard to come up with non-constructive examples; here’s one such.

For $x,y\in\mathbb{R}$ define $x\sim y$ iff $x-y\in \mathbb{Q}$; it’s easy to check that $\sim$ is an equivalence relation on $\mathbb{R}$. For any $x\in\mathbb{R}$, $[x] = \{x+q:q\in\mathbb{Q}\}$, where $[x]$ is the $\sim$-equivalence class of $x$. In particular, each equivalence class is countable. For any infinite cardinal $\kappa$, the union of $\kappa$ pairwise disjoint countably infinite sets has cardinality $\kappa$, so there must be exactly as many equivalence classes as there are real numbers. Let $h$ be a bijection from $\mathbb{R}/\sim$, the set of equivalence classes, to $\mathbb{R}$. Finally, define $$f:(0,1)\to\mathbb{R}:x\mapsto h([x])\;.$$

I claim that if $V$ is any non-empty open subset of $(0,1)$, $f[V]=\mathbb{R}$, which of course ensures that $f$ is open. To see this, just observe that every open interval in $(0,1)$ intersects every equivalence class. (It should be no trouble at all to see that $f$ is wildly discontinuous!)

Answer 2

There is in fact a rather easy example of a function $\mathbb R \to \mathbb R$ such that the image of every open set is $\mathbb R$: Let $(x_i)_{i\in\mathbb Z_+}$ be the binary expansion of $x$, so that each $x_i \in \{0,1\}$. Let then $f : \mathbb R \to \mathbb R$ be given by $$f(x) = \sum_{k=1}^\infty\frac{(-1)^{x_k}}k\quad \textrm{if the series converges}$$ $$f(x) = 0\quad \textrm{otherwise.}$$ Since the harmonic series (or a tail of it) can be made to converge to any real number by changing signs in the appropriate way, this function has $f((a,b)) = \mathbb R$ for any real $a < b$. Hence this function is open, though clearly not continuous at any point.

The harmonic series can be substituted with any other absolutely unbounded series where the summand goes to zero.

Answer 3

Let me conceptualize around Brian's answer a bit.

Definition 0. If $X$ and $Y$ are topological spaces, a function $f:X→Y$ is said to be strongly Darboux iff for all non-empty open sets $A⊆X$, we have $f(A)=Y$.

Here's the basic facts:

Proposition.

1. Every strongly Darboux function is an open function.
2. If $X$ is non-empty, every Darboux function $X \rightarrow Y$ is surjective.
3. If $X$ is non-empty and $f : X \rightarrow Y$ is a continuous Darboux mapping, then $Y$ carries the indiscrete topology.

Proofs.

1. Trivial.

2. Since $X$ is open and non-empty, hence $f(X)=Y.$ That is, $f$ is surjective.

3. Let $B \subseteq Y$ denote a non-empty open set. Our goal is to show that $B=Y$. Since $f$ is surjective, $f^{-1}(B)$ is non-empty. Since $f$ is continuous, $f^{-1}(B)$ is open. Hence $f(f^{-1}(B))=Y$. But since $f$ is surjecive, hence $f(f^{-1}(B))=B.$ So $B=Y$.

Putting these together, we see that every strongly Darboux function $f:\mathbb{R} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ is a discontinuous open mapping.

• $f$ is an open mapping by (1).

• $f$ is discontinuous by (3), because it's domain is non-empty and it's codomain doesn't carry the indiscrete topology.

And, of course, Brian's answer guarantees the existence of a strongly Darboux function $\mathbb{R} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$. This completes the proof.