How do I define a bijection between $(0,1)$ and $(0,1]$?

Question

How do I define a bijection between $(0,1)$ and $(0,1]$?

Or any other open and closed intervals?

If the intervals are both open like $(-1,2)\text{ and }(-5,4)$ I do a cheap trick (don't know if that's how you're supposed to do it): I make a function $f : (-1, 2)\rightarrow (-5, 4)$ of the form $f(x)=mx+b$ by \begin{align*} -5 = f(-1) &= m(-1)+b \\ 4 = f(2) &= m(2) + b \end{align*} Solving for $m$ and $b$ I find $m=3\text{ and }b=-2$ so then $f(x)=3x-2.$

Then I show that $f$ is a bijection by showing that it is injective and surjective.

Answer 1

Choose an infinite sequence $(x_n)_{n\geqslant1}$ of distinct elements of $(0,1)$. Let $X=\{x_n\mid n\geqslant1\}$, hence $X\subset(0,1)$. Let $x_0=1$. Define $f(x_n)=x_{n+1}$ for every $n\geqslant0$ and $f(x)=x$ for every $x$ in $(0,1)\setminus X$. Then $f$ is defined on $(0,1]$ and the map $f:(0,1]\to(0,1)$ is bijective.

To sum up, one extracts a copy of $\mathbb N$ from $(0,1)$ and one uses the fact that the map $n\mapsto n+1$ is a bijection between $\mathbb N\cup\{0\}$ and $\mathbb N$.

Answer 2

We will show that both sets are in bijection with $S^1\times \mathbb{Z}$.

Consider $(0,1)$. This is in bijection with $\mathbb{R}$ (for example, scale the interval to $(-\pi/2, \pi/2)$ and apply the tangent function). We can map $\mathbb{R}$ to $S^1\times \mathbb{Z}$ bijectively using the map $t\rightarrow (e^{2\pi i t},\lfloor t \rfloor)$.

Any set homeomorphic to $(0,1]$ can be put into bijection with $S^1$ using the map $t\rightarrow e^{2\pi i t}$. It remains to show that $(0,1]$ is in bijection with countably many copies of itself. To see this, note that the map $x\rightarrow -\frac{1}{x}$ takes $(0,1]$ to $(-\infty, -1]$, and consider the partition

$$\cdots (-4,-3],\ (-3,-2],\ (-2,-1].$$

This seems unnecessarily complicated, and I think you can just map both sets to $\mathbb{R}$ and circumvent the circle stuff, but this is how I figured it out.

Answer 3

Let $A=\{\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{3},...\}$,$B=\{1,\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{3},...\}$. Define $f:A\rightarrow B$ such that $f(\frac{1}{n})=\frac{1}{n-1}$.It is easy to show that $f$ is a bijection. Then define a function $g:(0,1) \rightarrow (0,1]$ such that

$g(x)=x$ if $x$ is not in $A$ , otherwise $g(x)=f(x)$.

Then $g$ is a required bijection from $(0,1)$ to $(0,1]$.

Remark: We can always solve this kind of question by picking a countable proper subset from (say) $(0,1)$ and then define a bijection $f$ so that the image of $f$ is a little bit bigger than its domain and then define a function which is equal to $f$ on the picked countable set and identity function outside that set.

Answer 4

Try something like the function in the following picture:

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If you only have to show that such bijection exists, you can use Cantor-Bernstein theorem and $(0,1)\subseteq (0,1] \subseteq (0,2)$. See also open and closed intervals have the same cardinality at PlanetMath.