Paper 3, Section I, H

Metric and Topological Spaces
Part IB, 2010

Let XX be a topological space and YY be a set. Let p:XYp: X \rightarrow Y be a surjection. The quotient topology on YY is defined as follows: a subset VYV \subset Y is open if and only if p1(V)p^{-1}(V) is open in XX.

(1) Show that this does indeed define a topology on YY, and show that pp is continuous when we endow YY with this topology.

(2) Let ZZ be another topological space and f:YZf: Y \rightarrow Z be a map. Show that ff is continuous if and only if fp:XZf \circ p: X \rightarrow Z is continuous.