这意味着
是
连续地“变换”为
,反之亦然。
Proof: First, note that by defining
for
, that
is continuous, since
for
open, from which we gain reflexivity as also
whenever
. Symmetry follows upon considering, given a homotopy
from
to
, the homotopy
, which is continuous as the composition of
with the continuous function
; indeed, the latter map is continuous since both of its components are; it is also a homotopy relative to
, since
for
. Finally, note that transitivity holds, since if
via the homotopy
and
via the homotopy
, then
via the homotopy
,
它是连续的,因为它在构成整个空间的两个闭集上是 连续的,并且相对于
,因为
和
都相对于
。 
注意第一个参数用下标表示,因此我们不写
,而是写
。
也就是说,形变缩回是恒等映射和到
的缩回映射之间的同伦。
证明: 我们有
,它等于(因此同伦于)
。此外,
和
之间的同伦由
本身给出。 
证明:对于任意点
,如果
是
到
的变形缩回,我们得到一条从
到
的路径,方式如下:
,
它作为连续函数的复合是连续的,因为映射
是连续的,因为第一项是恒等函数,第二项是常数函数。 
Proof: Suppose first that
is contractible, and let
be the contraction. Then
is simultaneously a homotopy between the identity and a constant map, where the latter has the value of the point onto which
contracts. If the identity is homotopic to a constant map, and
is the respective homotopy, then
is also a deformation retraction and we conclude 3. since this deformation retraction induces a homotopy equivalence between a one-point space and
. Let now
be a topological space and
a continuous function. Suppose further that
and
constitute a homotopy equivalence. Then in particular
via some homotopy
. But
is a constant map. We then get
via the homotopy
, so that
is nullhomotopic. Suppose now that
and
are two continuous functions. They will both be nullhomotopic, and if we can show that
is path-connected and
is the constant function to which
is homotopic and
for any
, then they will both be homotopic to
, since
is homotopic to any constant map via
, where
is a curve from
to the point of the other constant map
. But
is path-connected, since upon choosing
, the two-point space with discrete topology, we get that the (continuous) function sending
and
to two points
is nullhomotopic, and the homotopy
yields a path between
and
by the way of
,其中
和
。
最后,如果从任何空间到
的任何两个连续函数是同伦的,我们可以选择
,并将其中一个映射选择为任何常数映射,另一个映射选择为恒等映射;这两个映射之间的同伦就产生了所需的形变收缩。 
Proof: Suppose first that
does have the homotopy extension property. Then pick
and define
by
. Then
is homotopic to the function
via
, and then by the homotopy extension property we get a homotopy
of
to some other function
. By the form of
,
restricts to the identity on
, and further it maps
to
, so that
is a retraction. Suppose now that
is a retract of
via the function
, where we define
to ease notation. Let
(where
is some topological space) be a function and
a homotopy so that
. We define
![{\displaystyle {\tilde {H}}:[0,1]\times X\to Z,{\tilde {H}}(t,x):={\begin{cases}f(x)&r(t,x)\in \{0\}\times X\\{\tilde {H}}(r(t,x))&r(t,x)\in [0,1]\times A\end{cases}}}](https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/1627d8090f2e5245416739409cb9366c7424d062)
并声称它是连续的。请注意,
是
(它是连续的)与映射的合成
,
因此,只需证明
是连续的。为此,只需证明只要
是一个集合,使得
和
是开集,那么
本身就是开集;事实上,如果是这种情况,那么只要
是
的一个开子集,我们将有
![{\displaystyle \eta ^{-1}(V)=\eta ^{-1}(V)\cap \{0\}\times X\cup \eta ^{-1}\cap [0,1]\times A=\eta |_{\{0\}\times X}^{-1}(V)\cup \eta |_{[0,1]\times A}^{-1}(V)}](https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/08e0e889db891731062ad512a4d813070ec62626)
is open. So suppose that
has said property. We show that
is open by fixing a
and finding an open neighbourhood of
in
that is contained within
. If
, then we may just choose a suitable product neighbourhood since cylinders are a basis of the product topology and by the definition of the subspace topology. If
and
, we may just choose the set
. The only remaining case is the case
and
. If that is the case, suppose first that
, and consider the point
. We write the retraction
as
. Since
and
for all
, we get that
, since denoting the neighbourhood filter of
by
, we get that
converges to
by continuity of
(which follows from the characterisation of continuity of functions to a space with initial topology), but
is contained in each set
,
being a neighbourhood of
, since
, by definition of the product topology, always contains a point of the form
, where
, and we conclude since
is Hausdorff.
对于每个
,我们将
定义为
的最大开子集,使得
;由于具有此属性的集合在并运算下是封闭的,因此存在这样一个最大集合,我们取所有具有此属性的集合的并集。然后定义
;
is then an open subset of
. Now
, since otherwise, for all
we have
. However, then for arbitrary
and
, we get that
, since if
, then by continuity of
, we find
and
open with
, so that
, which implies in particular that
. However, for
, we simply have
since
is a retraction, and hence we get
and
. Hence,
since
, and thus
implies
. However, note that still
; indeed, by what was proven above, we have
, and then, since
is a retraction whence
, we must have
. We conclude that
for all
. Now we observe that if
is the projection from
to
, then
, since whenever
so that
, we find an open
and an
such that
, and we then write
, where
is open, and obtain
. By continuity of
, we then obtain
, since the preimage of the complement of
will be closed in
. But
, so that in fact
, a contradiction.
因此,选择
使得
; 那么邻域
将作为
的开邻域,包含在
内,使用子空间和乘积拓扑的定义。 