On some non-Archimedian spaces of Alexandroff and Urysohn (Q1295174)

In [Math. Ann. 98, 89-106 (1927; JFM 53.0559.01)] Alexandroff and Urysohn provided characterizations of the spaces \({}^\omega\omega\) (the irrationals), its subspace \(\bigcup_{n\in\omega}^\omega n\) and the complement of a point in the Cantor set -- these characterizations were in the spirit of \textit{L. E. J. Brouwer}'s characterization of the Cantor set [On the structure of perfect sets of points, Proc. Kon. Akad. Amsterdam 12, 785-794 (1910)]. The author surveys these results and shows how attempts to extend them (and their proofs) to products of the form~\({}^\lambda\kappa\) lead to `the topology of initial agreement' whose base is \(\{U(x,\alpha):x\in{}^\lambda\kappa,\alpha<\lambda\}\), where \(U(x,\alpha)=\{y\in{}^\lambda\kappa: y\upharpoonright\alpha=x\upharpoonright\alpha\}\). For weakly compact cardinals one obtains characterizations of the resulting spaces \({}^\kappa 2\) and \(\bigcup_{\lambda<\kappa} {}^\kappa\lambda\) that parallel those in the case~\(\kappa=\omega\).