English

Covering an uncountable square by countably many continuous functions

Logic 2012-10-23 v3 General Topology

Abstract

We prove that there exists a countable family of continuous real functions whose graphs together with their inverses cover an uncountable square, i.e. a set of the form X×XX\times X, where XX is an uncountable subset of the real line. This extends Sierpi\'nski's theorem from 1919, saying that S×SS\times S can be covered by countably many graphs of functions and inverses of functions if and only if the size of SS does not exceed 1\aleph_1. Our result is also motivated by Shelah's study of planar Borel sets without perfect rectangles.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0710.1402,
  title  = {Covering an uncountable square by countably many continuous functions},
  author = {Wiesław Kubiś and Benjamin Vejnar},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0710.1402},
  year   = {2012}
}

Comments

Added new results (9 pages)

R2 v1 2026-06-21T09:27:54.054Z