section_path: Concepts/Topologies on sets
section_name: Topologies on sets
paragraph_text: Topologies on sets
  
  The term topology also refers to a specific mathematical idea central to the area of mathematics called topology. Informally, a topology describes how elements of a set relate spatially to each other. The same set can have different topologies. For instance, the real line, the complex plane, and the Cantor set can be thought of as the same set with different topologies.
  
  Formally, let X be a set and let τ be a family of subsets of X. Then τ is called a topology on X if:
  
  If τ is a topology on X, then the pair (X, τ) is called a topological space. The notation X may be used to denote a set X endowed with the particular topology τ. By definition, every topology is a π -system.
  
  The members of τ are called open sets in X. A subset of X is said to be closed if its complement is in τ (that is, its complement is open). A subset of X may be open, closed, both (a clopen set), or neither. The empty set and X itself are always both closed and open. An open subset of X which contains a point x is called a neighborhood of x.