Partitions of Unity for Countable Covers

DOI10.2307/2975235MaRDI QIDQ4373315zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Albert Fathi

Publication date 19 January 1999

Published in The American Mathematical Monthly (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.2307/2975235

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Noncompact covering properties (paracompact, Lindelöf, etc.) (54D20)

Review text

This paper should be considered as expository classroom notes for the instructor. Existence of partitions of unity for metric spaces is usually proved via some rather exacting set-theoretical and topological arguments using the concept of paracompactness. Although the standard proof of paracompactness of metric spaces is the one given by \textit{M. E. Rudin} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 20, 603 (1969; Zbl 0175.49702)], in his 1965 PhD thesis M. Mather showed that it is easier, for metric spaces, to show directly the existence of locally finite partitions of unity for arbitrary covers. This proof does not seem to be so well-known although it has been reproduced in [\textit{N. Bourbaki}, Élements de mathématique. Topologie générale. Chap. 5 a 10. Nouvelle ed. (1974; Zbl 0337.54001)]. It is astonishing that Mather's arguments do not appear in recent textbooks. We hope that our exposition for countable covers will popularize it. An advantage of the method is that the same proof can be used in the smooth category.

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