Spaces of discrete shape and \(c\)-refinable maps that induce shape equivalences (Q1127011)

The authors have earlier showed how one can consider shape theory as a kind of a Cantor completion process so that they were able to define a complete non-Archimedean metric \(d\) on the set \(Sh(X, Y)\) of shape morphisms between (pointed) compacta \(X\) and \(Y\). They now define a pointed compactum \(X\) to have discrete shape provided there is an \(\varepsilon > 0\) such that \(d(\alpha, \beta)<\varepsilon\) for \(\alpha, \beta\in Sh(W, X)\) implies \(\alpha=\beta\), where \(W\) is a pointed internally movable connected space which has complicated structure and rather difficult construction. The first main result is that Taylor's famous compactum has discrete shape. The second main result is that the shape morphism induced by a \(c\)-refinable map between topological spaces \(X\) and \(Y\) is a shape equivalence when this shape morphism is an isolated point of \(Sh(X, Y)\). To understand this theorem one must introduce a notion of closeness in \(Sh(X, Y)\) when \(X\) and \(Y\) are arbitrary topological spaces which was accomplished by the reviewer's method with normal covers and recall that a surjective map \(r: X\to Y\) is \(c\)-refinable when for any normal covers \(\alpha\) of \(X\) and \(\beta\) of \(Y\) there is a closed surjective map \(s: X\to Y\) which is \(\beta\)-close to \(r\) and has the property that for every \(y\) in \(Y\) some member of \(\alpha\) contains \(s^{-1}(y)\). Several other minor observations are also included.