Proof of a conjecture of Galvin

Abstract

Abstract We prove that if the set of unordered pairs of real numbers is coloured by finitely many colours, there is a set of reals homeomorphic to the rationals whose pairs have at most two colours. Our proof uses large cardinals and verifies a conjecture of Galvin from the 1970s. We extend this result to an essentially optimal class of topological spaces in place of the reals.