# Stone-Čech compactification

Let $X$ be a Tychonoff space and let $C$ be the space of all continuous functions from $X$ to the closed interval $[0,1]$. To each element $x\in X$, we may associate the evaluation functional $e_{x}\colon C\to[0,1]$ defined by $e_{x}(f)=f(x)$. In this way, $X$ may be identified with a set of functionals.

The space $[0,1]^{C}$ of all functionals from $C$ to $[0,1]$ may be endowed with the Tychonoff product topology. Tychonoff’s theorem asserts that, in this topology, $[0,1]^{C}$ is a compact Hausdorff space. The closure in this topology of the subset of $[0,1]^{C}$ which was identified with $X$ via evaluation functionals is $\beta X$, the Stone-Čech compactification of $X$. Being a closed subset of a compact Hausdorff space, $\beta X$ is itself a compact Hausdorff space.

This construction has the wonderful property that, for any compact Hausdorff space $Y$, every continuous function $f\colon X\to Y$ may be extended to a unique continuous function $\beta f\colon\beta X\to Y$.

Title Stone-Čech compactification StonevCechCompactification 2013-03-22 14:37:38 2013-03-22 14:37:38 rspuzio (6075) rspuzio (6075) 10 rspuzio (6075) Definition msc 54D30