CANTOR SET Pham Q.V. 1, and Quek T.S.

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Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Science, National University of Singapore 2 Science Drive 2, Singapore 117543

ABSTRACT The Cantor set is a rather remarkable subset of [0, 1]. It provides us with a wealth of interesting examples in Mathematical Analysis. The peculiar nature of the Cantor set that gives rise to these examples is that, depending on how we look at it, it sometimes appears to be a fairly large subset of [0, 1] in the sense that it is uncountable and every point of is an accumulation point of . On the other hand, is small in the sense that it does not include any interval of positive length. We shall study the Cantor set and some of its applications in this report. INTRODUCTION The Cantor set is obtained by repeatedly deleting the open middle thirds of a set of line segments (starting from [0, 1] ). More specifically, let 1 be the unit interval [0, 1] with its middle third (1 / 3, 2 / 3) removed, that is, 1 = [0, 1/3] U [2/3, 1] . Let 2 be 1 with its middle thirds removed, that is, 2 = [0, 1 / 9] U [2 / 9, 1 / 3] U [2 / 3, 7/9] U [8/9, 1] . Continuing in this manner, we generate nested sets k such that k are the union of

2k closed intervals of length 1 / 3k each. The Cantor set is defined by

:= I k .
k =1

In Chapter 1 of this report we show that = {0 .(2t1 )(2t 2 )(2t3 )...(2ti )... : ti = 0 or 1, i N},
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where 0 .(2t1 )(2t 2 )(2t 3 )...(2ti )... = 2t1 / 3 + 2t 2 / 32 + + 2t i / 3i + . Some other properties
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of are also discussed in this chapter.

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Student Associate Professorial Fellow

In order to study the smallness of , we need the notion of Lebesgue measure and Chapter 2 is devoted to a study of Lebesgue measure. With the definition of Lebesgue measure, we show that the measure of is 0. We use Axiom of Choice to show the existence of non-measurable sets. Moreover, for any set with Lebesgue outer measure strictly greater than 0, we prove that there exists a non-measurable subset.
SOME APPLICATIONS

(A) Application in Measure Theory The Cantor ternary function is first defined on by (0 .(2t1 )(2t 2 )...(2t k )...) = 0 . t1t 2 ...t k ... .
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The domain of is then extended to [0, 1] by linear interpolation. We prove that (a) = (b) for each removed interval (a, b) . Hence, is constant on (a, b) and ( x) = (a) = (b) for all x (a, b) .

Fig. 1. The graph of extended Cantor function Let f : [0, 1] [0, 2] be defined by

f ( x) = ( x) + x .
Using the function f we are able to prove the following important results in Measure Theory. Details of the proofs are given in Chapter 3. f is bijective and maps the Cantor set whose measure is 0 onto a set of (i) measure 1. (ii) Let g = f 1 . Then there is a measurable set A [0, 1] such that g 1 ( A) is not measurable. (iii) For any measurable real-valued function h and continuous function , o h is measurable. However, there exists a continuous function and a measurable function h such that h o is not measurable. (iv) Though a Borel set is a measurable set, there exists a measurable set which is not a Borel set.

(B) Application in Space-Filling Curves We say

x = g (t ) y = h(t ) where a t b , is a two-dimensional space-filling curve or a Peano-curve if g, h are continuous and the set {( g (t ), h(t )) R 2 | a t b} has positive area. In Chapter 4 we study space-filling curves by Hilbert, Lebesgue and Schoenberg. All these curves map [0, 1] continuously onto [0, 1] [0, 1]. The Hilberts space-filling curve is nowhere differentiable. Lebegue noted that the Cantor set is uncountable and of measure 0. He used it to create an almost everywhere differentiable curve which is now called the Lebesgues curve. The continuity of Schoenbergs curve is quite straightforward compared with Lebesgues curve and it coincides with Lebesgues curve on the Cantor set. Approximating polygons for these curves are also presented in this chapter. Some of the approximating polygons are shown below

Figure 2. Sixth approximating polygon for Hilberts space-filling curve

Figure 3. First and second approximating polygon for Lebesgues space-filling curve

Figure 4. Schoenberg polygons of order 2, 4

CONCLUSION

Though all the results in this project are available in the References below, we try to make this project more elementary and easier to understand.
REMARKS

The first author proves (in his full report) (i) Proposition 2.8 and Lemma 2.9 of Chapter 2 which answer Problems 16 and 17 of Royden [2, p.66]. (ii) Proposition 3.9 of Chapter 3 which answers Problem 28 of Royden [2, p.71].
REFERENCES

[1] [2] [3] [4]

Gelbaum, B.R. and Olmsted, J.M.M (1964), Counter Examples in Analysis, Holden-Day. Royden, H.L. (1988), Real Analysis, Prentice Hall. Sagan, H. (1986), Approximating Polygons for Lebesgues and Schoenbergs Space-filling Curves, Amer. Math. Monthly, Vol 93(5), 361-368. Sagan, H. (1992), An Elementary Proof that Schoenberg's Space-Filling Curve is Nowhere Differentiable, Math. Mag., Vol 65(2), 125-128.