In: Advanced Math
Show that any open subset of R (w std. topology) is a countable union of open intervals.
What is the objective of this problem and enough to show ?
Answer: First recall that the standard topology of 
 is the topology generated by the basis 
Thus, an open subset 
 in the standard topology is a subset which can be written as union of intervals in 
. In other words, for any 
 there exists 
 such that 
 and 
Now, we consider the subcollection
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Since 
 is countable and the cartessian product of countable sets is countable, 
 is countable and hence the subcollection 
 is countable.
Now, we show that an open subset 
 of 
 can be written as union of open intervals in 
. Since 
 is countable, an open subset 
 of 
 can be written as countable union of open intervals. For,

that is, 
. Now, by the archimedean property of the real numbers, it follows that there exists 
 such that 
 and hence there exists 
 such that 
 . This shows that 
 can be written as union of open intervals in 
 which is countable and hence it follows that an open subset 
 of 
 can be written as countable union of open intervals.