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What is the difference between general order topology and ordinal space topology? I'm reading the first answer in Is every locally compact Hausdorff space paracompact?, and I don't understand why $E = [0,\omega) \times \{ \omega_1 \}$ and $F = \{ \omega \} \times [0,\omega_1)$ are closed. Every basis element containing $ \omega \times \omega_1 \in X - E $ must be the form of $(a,\omega] \times (c, \omega_1]$ in the order topology and since there must be an element of $[0,\omega)$ in $(a,\omega]$, $(a,\omega] \times (c, \omega_1]$ must intersect $E$. Then why is $ X - E$ open?

Sphere
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  • Every ordinal is a topological space in the order topology, but not every set in the order topology is an ordinal; only the well-ordered ones are. – Rivers McForge Nov 06 '20 at 03:17

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$X\setminus E=[0,\omega)\times[0,\omega_1]$; this is the product of an open set in $[0,\omega]$ and an open set in $[0,\omega_1]$, so it’s open in $[0,\omega]\times[0,\omega_1]$ and therefore open in the subspace $X$. $E$ is therefore the complement of an open subset of $X$, so $E$ is closed in $X$. The proof that $F$ is closed in $X$ is similar.

The point $\langle\omega,\omega_1\rangle$ is altogether irrelevant, since it’s not in $X$.

Brian M. Scott
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