Irredundant Sets in Atomic Boolean Algebras

Assuming GCH, we construct an atomic boolean algebra whose pi-weight is strictly less than the least size of a maximal irredundant family.Comment: This version corrects some errors in the original arXiv versio

Dissipated Compacta

The dissipated spaces form a class of compacta which contains both the scattered compacta and the compact LOTSes (linearly ordered topological spaces), and a number of theorems true for these latter two classes are true more generally for the dissipated spaces. For example, every regular Borel measure on a dissipated space is separable. A product of two compact LOTSes is usually not dissipated, but it may satisfy a weakening of that property. In fact, the degree of dissipation of a space can be used to distinguish topologically a product of n LOTSes from a product of m LOTSes.Comment: 34 page

The Complex Stone-Weierstrass Property

C(X) denotes the space of continuous complex-valued functions on the compact Hausdorff space X. X has the CSWP if every subalgebra of C(X) which separates points and contains the constant functions is dense in C(X). W. Rudin showed that all scattered X have the CSWP. We describe a class of non-scattered X with the CSWP; by another result of Rudin, such X cannot be metrizable.Comment: 15 pages This version extends the main result of the previous version from separable compact ordered spaces to general compact ordered space

Characterizing Subgroups of Compact Abelian Groups

We prove that every countable subgroup of a compact metrizable abelian group has a characterizing set. As an application, we answer several questions on maximally almost periodic (MAP) groups and give a characterization of the class of (necessarily MAP) abelian topological groups whose Bohr topology has countable pseudocharacter.Comment: 12 page

Properties of the Class of Measure Separable Compact Spaces

We investigate properties of the class of compact spaces on which every regular Borel measure is separable. This class will be referred to as MS. We discuss some closure properties of MS, and show that some simply defined compact spaces, such as compact ordered spaces or compact scattered spaces, are in MS. Most of the basic theory for regular measures is true just in ZFC. On the other hand, the existence of a compact ordered scattered space which carries a non-separable (non-regular) Borel measure is equivalent to the existence of a real-valued measurable cardinal less or equal to c. We show that not being in MS is preserved by all forcing extensions which do not collapse omega_1, while being in MS can be destroyed even by a ccc forcing

Locally Constant Functions

Let X be a compact Hausdorff space and M a metric space. E_0(X,M) is the set of f in C(X,M) such that there is a dense set of points x in X with f constant on some neighborhood of x. We describe some general classes of X for which E_0(X,M) is all of C(X,M). These include beta N - N, any nowhere separable LOTS, and any X such that forcing with the open subsets of X does not add reals. In the case that M is a Banach space, we discuss the properties of E_0(X,M) as a normed linear space. We also build three first countable Eberlein compact spaces, F,G,H, with various E_0 properties: For all metric M: E_0(F,M) contains only the constant functions, and E_0(G,M) = C(G,M). If M is the Hilbert cube or any infinite dimensional Banach space, E_0(H,M) is not all of C(H,M), but E_0(H,M) = C(H,M) whenever M is a subset of RR^n for some finite n