On the union of simply connected planar sets (Q1612257)

Recall that a subset \(A\) of \(\mathbb{R}^2\) is said to be cellular if there exists a sequence \((D_n)_{n<\omega}\) of 2-disks in \(\mathbb{R}^2\) such that \(D_{n+1} \subset\text{int} D_n\) for each \(n<\omega\) and \(A=\bigcap \{D_n\mid n< \omega\}\). The following results are proved. Theorem 1: If \(X\subset \mathbb{R}^2\) is the union of two simply connected compact subspaces \(X_1,X_2\) of \(X\) such that \(X_1\cap X_2\) is path connected and cellular, then \(X\) is simply connected. Example: There exist two simply connected compact subspaces \(X_1, X_2\) of \(\mathbb{R}^2\) such that \(X_1\cap X_2\) is simply connected and \(X=X_1 \cup X_2\) is not simply connected. Theorem 2: If a 1-dimensional subset \(X\) of \(\mathbb{R}^2\) is the union of two simply connected compact subspaces \(X_1,X_2\) of \(X\) such that \(X_1\cap X_2\) is path connected, then \(X\) is simply connected.