What is "dense-in-itself"

a. (context mathematics of a subset of a topological space English) Having no isolated points.

In mathematics, a subset A of a topological space is said to be dense-in-itself if A contains no isolated points.

Every dense-in-itself closed set is perfect. Conversely, every perfect set is dense-in-itself.

A simple example of a set which is dense-in-itself but not closed (and hence not a perfect set) is the subset of irrational numbers (considered as a subset of the real numbers). This set is dense-in-itself because every neighborhood of an irrational number x contains at least one other irrational number y ≠ x. On the other hand, this set of irrationals is not closed because every rational number lies in its closure. For similar reasons, the set of rational numbers (also considered as a subset of the real numbers) is also dense-in-itself but not closed.

The above examples, the irrationals and the rationals, are also dense sets in their topological space, namely R. As an example that is dense-in-itself but not dense in its topological space, consider Q ∩ [0, 1]. This set is not dense in R but is dense-in-itself.