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I am studying a proof that the set $L$ of Liouville numbers in $[0,1]$ has Hausdorff dimension zero. $L=\lbrace x\in [0,1]: \forall n\in \mathbb{N}, \exists p,q\in \mathbb{Z}, q>1, \text{and such that}\,0<\vert x-\frac{p}{q} \vert <\frac{1}{q^n}\rbrace.$ We give an $\varepsilon$-cover of $L\cap [0,1]$: Let $p,q\in \mathbb{Q}$. Define $I_{p/q}$ to be an interval centered at $\frac{p}{q}$ of length $\frac{1}{q^n}<\varepsilon.$ Then $J_n=\lbrace I_{p/q}:\frac{p}{q}\in \mathbb{Q}, q^n>q_0, q_0>\varepsilon ^{-1} \rbrace$ is our $\varepsilon$-cover. $$\sum_{p/q\in \mathbb{Q}, q>q_0}|I_{p/q}|^s\le \sum_{q>q_0}\frac{2^s}{q^{ns}}\cdot q<2\sum_{q>q_0}\frac{1}{q^{ns-1}}<\delta.$$

$(*)$ This proves $L$ has Hausdorff dimension $0$ since for $\varepsilon>0, \delta >0, \exists \varepsilon-\text{cover}$ (by choosing $q_0$ large) such that $\sum_{I\, \text{is a cover}}|I|^s<\delta \Rightarrow \text{Hdim}\le s.$ (TRUE provided $s>\frac{1}{n} \Rightarrow \text{Hdim}(L)\le \frac{1}{n} \Rightarrow \text{Hdim}(L)=0$)

Questions:

1) Why does the author sum the $|I_{p/q}|$ rather than the $J_n$?

2) $(*)$ Doesn't make any sense to me. Can someone give an example or a link to a detailed example of how to prove that the Hausdorff dimension of a set is a given number?

3 Answers3

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You can learn Hausdorff measure and dimension in Fractal Geometry: Mathematical Foundations and Applications by Kenneth Falconer. There are beginner examples of computing fractal dimensions of sets as well as ones related to approximation of irrationals.

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It occurred to me that you might find some very detailed and explicit Hausdorff dimension calculations in a Masters (or undergraduate Honors) Thesis, so I googled each of the phrases "Masters Thesis" and "Honors Thesis" with the phrase "Hausdorff dimension" and found the following:

David C Seal, An Introduction to Fractals and Hausdorff Measures, Senior Honors Thesis (under Davar Khoshnevisan), University of Utah, 2006, iii + 21 pages.

David Worth, Construction of Geometric Outer-Measures and Dimension Theory, Master of Science Thesis (under Terry Loring), University of New Mexico, December 2006, xi + 77 pages.

Kristine A. Roinestad, Geometry of Self-Similar Sets, Master of Science Thesis (under Peter Haskell), Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 8 May 2007, v + 63 pages. [See Chapter 2, pp. 4-10).

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I will try to give a self-contained proof based on the sketch presented by the OP. I think there are some details which should be addressed more precisely. Moreover, the inequality required for $n$ is not sufficient in my opinion. I have tried to stick to the notation used by the OP.

Preliminary notions. We recall the definition of Hausdorff dimension. For a subset $U$ of a metric space (e.g. real line), define $\operatorname{diam}(U)$ to be the diameter of $U$, i.e. the supremum of distances between any two elements of $U$. If $U$ would be an interval, that is just its length. Now for a set $X$, for $s\ge 0$ (which would take the role of a dimension) and $\varepsilon>0$ define $$H_\varepsilon^s(X)=\inf\left \{\sum_{i=1}^\infty (\operatorname{diam} U_i)^s: X\subseteq\bigcup_{i=1}^\infty U_i,\ \operatorname{diam} U_i<\varepsilon\right \}.$$ One observes that this is nonincreasing as a function of $\varepsilon$ (smaller $\varepsilon$ - less covers $\{U_n\}_{n\ge 1}$). Thus we define $$\displaystyle\mathcal{H}^s(X)=\sup_{\varepsilon>0}H_\varepsilon^s(X)=\lim_{\varepsilon\to 0}H_\varepsilon^s(X).$$ This turns out to be a measure (defined at least on the Borel $\sigma$-algebra (the one containing all open sets)); it is called $s$-dimensional Hausdorff measure. One may observe that $\mathcal{H}^s(X)$ is nonincreasing as a function of $s$ with values in $[0,\infty]$, and may obtain at most one finite nonzero value (consider for example subset of $[0,1]$). Define the Hausdorff dimension as the $s$ for which we switch from measure $\infty$ to measure $0$, i.e. $$\dim_{\operatorname{H}}{(X)}=\inf\{s\ge 0: \mathcal{H}^s(X)=0\}.$$

To the problem. We want to show that the set of Liouville numbers in $[0,1]$ has dimension $0$. Denote this set by $L$. Recall that by definition $x\in L $ iff for each positive integer $n$ there exist infinitely many positive integers $p,q$, such that $$\left|x-\frac{p}{q}\right|<\frac{1}{q^n}.$$ Pay attention, the usual definition requires existence of at least one such pair $p,q$; it is easy to observe that if there exists at least one pair for each $n$, then there exist infinitely many pairs for each $n$.

So let us unpack what it means for a set to have dimension $0$. Going back to the above definitions (in reverse order) we see that it suffices to show that for any $s>0$ holds $\mathcal{H}^s(X)=0$. This in turn reduces to showing that for $\varepsilon>0$ holds $H_\varepsilon^s(X)=0$. This means that $$\inf\left \{\sum_{i=1}^\infty (\operatorname{diam} U_i)^s: X\subseteq\bigcup_{i=1}^\infty U_i,\ \operatorname{diam} U_i<\varepsilon\right \}=0$$ Finally, unwrapping the infimum we may summarise the task to be done as follows:

For any $s>0$, $\varepsilon>0$ and $\delta>0$ there exists a countable collection $\{U_i\}_{i\ge 1}$ such that: $\displaystyle X\subset \bigcup_{i\ge 1}U_i$, $\operatorname{diam}U_i<\varepsilon$ for all $i$ and $$ \sum_{i=1}^\infty (\operatorname{diam} U_i)^s<\delta.$$

So fix $s>0$, $\varepsilon>0$ and $\delta>0$. We may assume $s<1$. Fix $\displaystyle n>\frac{3}{s},\ q_0>\max\left\{\frac{2}{\varepsilon},\frac{2}{\delta}\right\}$ and consider $$I_{p,q}:=\left(\frac{p}{q}-\frac{1}{q^n},\frac{p}{q}+\frac{1}{q^n}\right).$$ One observes that (recalling the modified, still equivalent defintion, we stated) $$L\subset \bigcup_{q>q_0}\bigcup_{p=1}^{q-1}I_{p,q}$$ Moreover $\displaystyle\operatorname{diam}I_{p,q}=\frac{2}{q^n}<\frac{2}{q_0}<\varepsilon.$ Finally we estimate $$\sum_{q>q_0}\sum_{p=1}^{q-1}(\operatorname{diam}I_{p,q})^s\le\sum_{q>q_0}\frac{2^s}{q^{ns}}q\le 2\sum_{q>q_0}\frac{1}{q^{ns-1}}\le 2\sum_{q>q_0}\frac{1}{q^{2}}\le \frac{2}{q_0}<\delta.$$ In the above we used the inequality $$\sum_{k>n}\frac{1}{k^2}\le \frac{1}{n}$$ which could be proven, for example, by estimating the sum from above by $\displaystyle \int_n^\infty\frac{1}{x^2}dx$.

Thus the proof is finished.

Comment. Why is this result interesting, apart from finding explicitly the Hausdorff dimension of a particular set? Regarding Lebesgue measure, it is not obvious whether there exists an uncountable set with measure zero. Lioville numbers serve as such example. However, Liouville numbers even serve as an example of an uncountable set with Hausdorff dimension zero, and this is much stronger. For example, another common reference of an uncountable set with measure $0$ is the Cantor set. Yet it has positive Hausdorff dimension ($\ln 2/\ln 3$). Thus the set of Lioville numbers, is in a sense, way smaller than the Cantor set. Yet it is still uncountable. One could also say that Liouville numbers are example of the smallest possible uncountable sets among the sets with measure zero. You can look at this MSE thread for another construction of such sets. Thanks to Dave L. Renfro, for reminding me of another aspect of Liouville numbers. They are of second Baire category, or $G_\delta$ dense, which one might consider "large" in the sense of topology. Hence Lioville numbers are big in sense of cardinality and topology (actually $G_\delta$-dense in $[0,1]$ implies uncountable), yet they are among the smallest in the sense of measure and dimension.

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    (+1) Nice to have a detailed answer to this computation in MSE. I haven't looked to see if this computation is given elsewhere, and I haven't checked all the details, but this is definitely a good place for the computation and nothing seems obviously wrong. Errata: "if there exists at least on pair for each n" (on should be one) -- and near the end explicitely should be explicitly. A proof that the set of Liouville numbers has Hausdorff dimension zero can be found at the end of Chapter 2 of Measure and Category by Oxtoby (continued) – Dave L. Renfro Aug 22 '22 at 17:43
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    (p. 9 in both 1971 1st edition and 1980 2nd edition). Even more interesting is the fact that the Liouville numbers form a set that is vastly larger than what uncountable tends to suggest. Almost all real numbers in the sense of Baire category are Liouville numbers (top of p. 8 of Oxtoby's book). See this answer for more about this idea (continued) – Dave L. Renfro Aug 22 '22 at 17:44
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    (especially the last paragraph about orthogonal $\sigma$-ideals, in which "measure zero" can also be replaced by "Hausdorff dimension zero" in that paragraph). Finally, there are much stronger notions of "being a Liouville number" in which this dichotomy of smallness/largeness is still true (i.e. simultaneously being Hausdorff dimension zero and co-meager) -- see my comment to this answer. – Dave L. Renfro Aug 22 '22 at 17:44
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    Regarding the fact that the set of Liouville numbers is the complement of a (Baire) first category set (i.e. a meager set), see also: [1] Frederick Otto Bagemihl, Some sets of sums and differences, Michigan Mathematical Journal 4 #3 (1957), pp. 289-290; [2] William McGowen Priestley, Sets thick and thin, American Mathematical Monthly 83 #8 (October 1976), pp. 648-650. – Dave L. Renfro Aug 22 '22 at 19:37
  • I added your remark about the Liouville numbers being of Baire second category. – Stoyan Apostolov Aug 22 '22 at 20:01
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    The current usage of the term "second category" is "not first category" (i.e. non-meager), which is a much weaker notion of largeness than "complement is first category". "Second category" is analogous to "positive measure" (technically, positive outer measure), whereas the situation here is actually complement of first category, which is analogous to "complement is measure zero". The reason I said "current usage" is because some authors used to say "second category" for "complement is first category" -- see near the beginning of this answer. – Dave L. Renfro Aug 22 '22 at 20:53
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    Also, neither second category (non-meager) nor complement of first category (residual, generic, etc.) means $G_{\delta}$ and dense. The condition of being $G_{\delta}$ and dense is a condition that is minimally sufficient to be "big enough" to be residual in the sense that every residual set (i.e. every set whose complement is first category) CONTAINS (as a subset, which might be the set itself) a $G_{\delta}$ and dense set. In fact, this is sometimes taken to be the definition of "residual" -- a set that contains a $G_{\delta}$ and dense set. (Here "dense" means dense in the ambient space.) – Dave L. Renfro Aug 22 '22 at 20:58
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    To continue (and sometime when I have the time I probably should look for a question that I can utilize, for an answer, an essay on this idea), think of $G_{\delta}$ as a niceness property (the set is structurally simple in a certain sense) and "dense" as a largeness property. When the niceness property of being $G_{\delta}$ is included with the largeness property of being dense, we get a strictly stronger largeness property, namely being co-meager. Since we generally would want any superset of a set having a certain largeness property to also have that largeness property, (continued) – Dave L. Renfro Aug 22 '22 at 21:53
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    we'd like co-meager to also apply to any superset of a set that is $G_{\delta}$ and dense, which it does (via any subset of a nowhere dense is also nowhere dense; there's some straightforward set manipulations with De Morgan's law to reconcile these two statements). For some other examples of when a niceness property added to a largeness (or a smallness) property winds up strengthening that largeness (or smallness) property are given at the end of this 29 April 2005 sci.math post. – Dave L. Renfro Aug 22 '22 at 21:59