real linear space (the latter underlies the former), since each complex number can be specified by two real numbers. For example, the complex plane treated as a one-dimensional complex linear space may be downgraded to a two-dimensional real linear space. In contrast, the real line can be treated as a one-dimensional real linear space but not a complex linear space. See also field extensions. More generally, a vector space over a field also has the structure of a vector space over a subfield of that field. Linear operations, given in a linear space by definition, lead to such notions as straight lines (and planes, and other linear subspaces); parallel lines; ellipses (and ellipsoids). However, it is impossible to define orthogonal (perpendicular) lines, or to single out circles among ellipses, because in a linear space there is no structure like a scalar product that could be used for measuring angles. The dimension of a linear space is defined as the maximal number of linearly independent vectors or, equivalently, as the minimal number of vectors that span the space; it may be finite or infinite. Two linear spaces over the same field are isomorphic if and only if they are of the same dimension. A complex linear space is also a real linear space. Topological spaces are of analytic nature. Open sets, given in a topological space by definition, lead to such notions as continuous functions, paths, maps; convergent sequences, limits; interior, boundary, exterior. However, uniform continuity, bounded sets, Cauchy sequences, differentiable functions (paths, maps) remain undefined. Isomorphisms between topological spaces are traditionally called homeomorphisms; these are one-to-one correspondences continuous in both directions. The open interval (0,1) is homeomorphic to the whole real line (−∞,∞) but not homeomorphic to the closed interval [0,1], nor to a circle. The surface of a cube is homeomorphic to a sphere (the surface of a ball) but not homeomorphic to a torus. Euclidean spaces of different dimensions are not homeomorphic, which seems evident, but is not easy to prove. The dimension of a topological space is difficult to define; inductive dimension (based on the observation that the dimension of the boundary of a geometric figure is usually one less than the dimension of the figure itself) and Lebesgue covering dimension can be used. In the case of a Euclidean space, both topological dimensions are equal to n. Every subset of a topological space is itself a