2026-06-28

1851: For Metric Space and Subset, Distance from Subset Map Is Uniformly Continuous

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description/proof of that for metric space and subset, distance from subset map is uniformly continuous

Topics


About: metric space

The table of contents of this article


Starting Context



Target Context


  • The reader will have a description and a proof of the proposition that for any metric space and any subset, the distance from the subset map is uniformly continuous.

Orientation


There is a list of definitions discussed so far in this site.

There is a list of propositions discussed so far in this site.


Main Body


1: Structured Description


Here is the rules of Structured Description.

Entities:
\(M\): \(\in \{\text{ the metric spaces }\}\)
\(\mathbb{R}\): \(= \text{ the Euclidean metric space }\)
\(S\): \(\subseteq M\)
\(f\): \(: M \to \mathbb{R}, m \mapsto dist (S, m)\)
//

Statements:
\(f \in \{\text{ the uniformly continuous maps }\}\)
//


2: Proof


Whole Strategy: Step 1: take any \(\epsilon \in \mathbb{R}\) and see that for \(\delta = \epsilon\), \(f (B_{m, \delta}) \subseteq B_{f (m), \epsilon}\).

Step 1:

Let \(\epsilon \in \mathbb{R}\) be any such that \(0 \lt \epsilon\).

Let us take \(\delta = \epsilon\).

Let \(m \in M\) be any.

Let us see that \(f (B_{m, \delta}) \subseteq B_{f (m), \epsilon}\).

Let \(m' \in B_{m, \delta}\) be any.

\(dist (S, m') \le dist (S, m) + dist (m, m')\), by the proposition that for any metric space and any subset, the distance between the subset and any point satisfies the triangle inequality with respect to any other point.

That equals \(f (m') \le f (m) + dist (m, m')\).

So, \(f (m') - f (m) \le dist (m, m') \lt \delta\).

By the symmetry, \(f (m) - f (m') \lt \delta\).

So, \(\vert f (m') - f (m) \vert \lt \delta = \epsilon\).

That means that \(f (m') \in B_{f (m), \epsilon}\).

So, \(f (B_{m, \delta}) \subseteq B_{f (m), \epsilon}\).

As \(\delta\) is determined independent of \(m\), \(f\) is uniformly continuous.


References


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