Video summary
The Riemann Mapping Theorem asserts that any simply connected open subset of the complex plane, provided it is not the entire plane itself, is conformally equivalent to the open unit disk. This means there exists a bijective holomorphic function mapping such a domain onto the unit disk with a holomorphic inverse. While Bernhard Riemann originally proposed an argument for this in his 1851 thesis, his proof relied on the maximum principle without fully establishing its validity in all cases, leading to a gap that remained unresolved for decades. The first complete proofs were eventually provided by William Osgood and others around the turn of the twentieth century. A crucial exception to the theorem is when the domain is the entire complex plane; this limitation arises from Liouville's Theorem, which states that any bounded holomorphic function on the whole complex plane must be constant, thereby preventing the existence of a non-constant bijection to the unit disk.
The proof strategy involves constructing a specific holomorphic and injective map from the given domain $D$ to the unit disk that sends a chosen point $z_0$ to the origin while maximizing the absolute value of the derivative at that point. To ensure such a map exists, the argument first reduces the general case to a bounded one by utilizing the fact that the domain omits at least one point, allowing for transformations like taking square roots or applying Möbius transformations to create a "hole" around the origin. Once the domain is treated as bounded, the Schwarz Lemma is invoked to establish a universal upper bound on the derivatives of all possible injective maps from $D$ to the unit disk. This step guarantees that the set of such derivatives is bounded above, setting the stage for finding a function that achieves this maximum value.
A significant subtlety in the proof lies in demonstrating that a sequence of functions whose derivatives approach this supremum actually converges to a limit function. In general analysis, a bounded sequence of functions does not necessarily converge, but for holomorphic functions, the Cauchy integral formula provides a bound on the derivative based on the function's values, which implies equicontinuity. This property allows the application of the Arzelà-Ascoli theorem to extract a uniformly convergent subsequence on compact subsets. The limit of this subsequence is shown to be injective because the domain is open; if the limit were not injective, the nearby functions in the sequence would also fail to be injective due to the stability of injectivity under small perturbations in open sets.
The final and most delicate part of the proof establishes that this limiting function is also surjective onto the unit disk. If the map were not surjective, it would omit some point $w$ within the disk. One could then construct a new function by composing the original map with a Möbius transformation that moves $w$ to the origin, followed by a square root operation, and another Möbius transformation to return the origin to itself. This composition creates a new injective map from $D$ to the unit disk whose derivative at $z_0$ is strictly larger than that of the supposed maximizing function, contradicting the maximality assumption. By showing that such an improvement is impossible, it follows that the limit function must cover the entire unit disk, thus completing the proof of the Riemann Mapping Theorem.
Read the full video transcript
but this video will be about the rean
mapping
theorem um so what I'm going to do
is um State the theorem and then sketch
the proof of it so first of all state
what it is suppose you take
any
complicated open subset D of the complex
plane the rean mapping theorem says that
this is
isomorphic to the open unit dis so this
is just the complex number Z with z um
having absolute value less than one um
the only conditions are that D should be
Simply
Connected um and open as I said and next
condition is that D should not be the
whole of the complex plane it fails for
for this one
case so reman sort of gave an argument
for it in his thesis in about 18
51 however his argument was notoriously
incomplete it used something reman
called the duay principle and it wasn't
really clear under what circumstances
this was true and it took about 50 years
to to sort out what was actually going
on so the first complete proofs of it
were given about 50 or 60 years later by
Osgood and kodori and kibi so the theem
really ought to be named after them as
well um notice by the way that this open
subset D can be pretty wild so for
example if I take an open
Square then I can remove bits of it
looking like this so I can just remove
lines and um you you find that for the
boundary of this square there's actually
no Arc connecting a point on this
boundary to a point in here because it
would have to oscillate up and down um
um an infinite distance
um and moreover we can make it even
weirder so so I can I can remove some
sort of weird fractal like object so I
can take some sort of infinitely
branching fractal in some very
complicated way so this open set can
really be extremely hairy and it's sort
of amazing that you can always make it
isomorphic to that that that means you
should have a polymorphic function from
um f from D to the unit dis whose
inverse is also holomorphic
um then we have this funny exception
that D can't be the whole of c um um
this follows because of lille's
theorem which says that there is no that
any bounded map on the complex numbers
must be constant so if you've got a map
from the whole complex numbers to the
unit disk it must just be constant so it
can't be an
isomorphism um
so um now I'm going to uh sketch the
main idea of the proof so the proof
comes
in uh four
steps so um the idea is we're going to
look
at
maps from D to the um um open unit Dis
Let's call this
U so here's going to be the map F and
here we've got some funny set D and I'm
going to choose a point in D so I'm
going to choose a special point z0 and
I'm going to choose the point not in the
unit disk and and I want the map to have
the property that F of
z0 is zero so it's going to take that
point to that
point and we're going to choose um
f so it's holomorphic and
injective and we want to
maximize
the
derivative of F at at z0 and what we
want to show is that
that there is um we need to show there's
a unique such function and it satisfies
um the the conditions of of Ran's
mapping
theorem so um so suppose um let's call
the space of all such Maps F so we need
to show four things first of all we need
to show that f is
nonempty rather obviously there aren't
any maps of if there aren't any injected
maps at all we certainly can't find an
isomorphism secondly we need to show
that fime of Z not is bounded
above and if it's bounded
above then it's and and um that there is
at least one such F then
these two maps together say that
the um values of
f the derivative of F at Z not have a
supremum um thirdly we want to show
there
exists sorry there exists f um with fime
of
Z
maximal um this is a rather subtle point
I mean we can find functions with fime Z
not arbitrarily close to the maximum but
it's not clear that we can really take a
limit of them and this is actually um
something like this was the problem with
Ran's original proof he kind
of assumed you could you could take a
limit of functions and this is rather
subtle problem sometimes you can and
sometimes you can't and finally we've
got to um um show that f is injected
and
subjective where where um this F is is
the thing with with the derivative as
large as
possible um so I'll go through these
four steps um um first of
all
um um we want to
find we need to find one
f um mapping d to the unit
ball and we notice this actually
fails for uh D the complex numbers as I
mentioned before by Lil's theorem here I
want F to be injective and
holomorphic um and this is
obvious if the domain D is
bounded because we can just translate it
and multiply it by a constant and that
will put it inside the unit
ball and so what we want to do is to
reduce the case when D is bounded and um
um because D is not equal to C so D
omits some
point and we may as well assume that
this point is the origin because we can
just translate it and D is Simply
Connected
and it emits zero and what this means is
um we can
Define and the square root function on
D so you know normally there's a bit of
a problem defining the square root
function because it is a branch point at
the origin and so on but if we've got a
Simply Connected region not containing
zero then we we can actually Define the
square root function and then we can
check the image of d
under the square root is not
dense in the complex numbers um notice
that D might have been dense for
instance it might be the complex numbers
minus the um minus the positive real
Axis or something like that but by by
doing the square root trick we can make
sure it's not dense so we can
assume again if it's not dense we can
translation assume it emits
um um a
small dis with
Center at zero and then if we if if we
map um the if we map it by taking Z to
one / Z this will give us a
bounded um domain in the complex numbers
because D emits a small disc around zero
so we've reduced the bounded case so
there's at least one such function f as
I said this is the point at which we
need to use the fact that D is not equal
to the whole of the complex
numbers um next we're going to show that
fime of C
0 is
bounded what what this means is that no
matter which injective F you take
there's a there's a universal upper
Bound for
them and for for this we recall um the
Schwartz Lema most difficult part of the
Schwartz Lem is trying to remember that
Schwartz doesn't have a t in it because
there's a some Schartz is with a t and
some without it's kind of like Lorent
there are lots of physicists called
Lorent some with a t and some without a
t anyway um Schwarz Lemma says that if
you've got a
map from the unit dis to the unit dis
then F Prime of zero
has absolute value less than or equal to
one and it's less than one
unless um f is a
rotation and we're going to use this
later and this is quite easy to prove
all you do is you look at FC over Z and
we can check this is
bounded by one by by looking at its
values on a circle very close to the
unit circle and um since this is bounded
by one this easily implies the
derivative is at most one at zero and um
if um this is equal to
one at some
point then F of C over Z is
constant um which implies that um f must
actually be a rotation anyway um what
this means is um we can now bound all
these functions because we take our
domain
D and we're mapping it to the unit
dis um well what we do is we um we take
our point z0 and we take just take some
small dis around
z0 and our function f is bounded on this
dis it Maps this disc into this dis so
by schatz's Lemma we have a universal
upper bound on all such on the D I
atives of all such functions at
z0
um um so um what we can find is we can
find a sequence of functions fub1 F2 and
so on with Fi of
z0 the derivative of fi at z0 tends to M
which is the maximum
value
of um um F of z0 prime not the maximum
value we haven't shown the maximum
exists so it should be called a supreme
and because we've shown that there is
such a finite value M and the problem is
do these FIS
converge to some limit F and this is in
general this is a rather tricky
problem um so if you've got a sequence
of functions obviously you can't always
that that necess doesn't necessarily
converge but you can ask if the
functions are bounded can we find a
convergent subsequence and this sounds
quite plausable because if you've got a
convergent sequence of real numbers we
can find a convergent subsequence if
it's if it's
bounded so sorry if we've got a bounded
sequence of real numbers we can find a
convergent
subsequence and the answer is in general
no for instance if we look at functions
F from the unit interval to the unit
interval we can find a sequence that has
no convergence some sequence and the the
first one will sort of oscillate a
little bit and the second one will
oscillate more and the third one will
oscillate even more and so on so we're
can have a sequence of bounded functions
with no convergent
subsequence um and the problem here is
that the
derivatives get
large or if F isn't differentiable it's
it's the differences between points get
very large and there's a basic theorem
called the
arala ascoli
theorem which says that we can
find a
convergent
subsequence if um well Theus says we can
find a convergent subsequence if the if
the sequence is equ continuous the
trouble with this is that no one can
ever quite remember what equ continuous
means but roughly what it means is that
if we
have a good
Bound for the
derivatives of
fi and what we mean by good bound um I'm
not going to worry about too much but
the point is if we can bound derivatives
of these functions then we can always
find a convergent
subsequence and and the point is that um
if we're working for with real functions
there's no easy way to bound the
derivatives if we're working with
complex holomorphic functions then we've
got a good bound so the the derivative
of a function at a is given by 1/ 2 pi I
* integral of f of Z over zus a squar
DZ
and what you notice here is that if we
have a bound on F of z um then we get a
bound on this integral here here this is
a we're integrating a little circle
around a so we get a bound on the
derivative there's one slight catch we
need to be able to integrate around this
little circle so if we have a bound of f
on some region we get a bound on the
derivative in a slightly smaller region
and this turns out to be good enough to
show that we get a convergent
subsequence um well you need to think
about what convergence means and and it
turns out to mean uniformly convergence
on compact subsets and I'm not going to
worry too much about what that means um
the point is that if we've got a bounded
sequence of
holomorphic
um um functions in in the complex plane
then that there's this very general
theorem saying you can nearly always
find a nice convergent subsequence for
some in some sense of the word
convergent
um by the way um I can give an example
of
um some an example of why you need to be
a bit careful what we're trying to do is
we're trying to
maximize um the derivative of a function
at some point given some boundary
conditions um like it has to take z0 to
zero um if you try and
maximize um the integral from 0 to one
of f of Z DZ given that F of
z um is bounded by one and f of0 = f of
1al 0 then there's actually no solution
to this um because we can find functions
we can find a function like that or we
could have another function that looks
like
this and so on so you can make the the
the supremum of this
is one but there's no function that
actually takes the supremum so you've
got to be a bit careful about um saying
that if you've got a sequence of
functions then you can find some
function maximizing some value because
it doesn't always hold um the point is
the ARA ascoli theorem says we can
actually find a function maximizing the
derivative of of frime of zero
um um but that's that that's because we
can we've got a good Bound for the
derivative of these function notice by
the way that the derivatives here are
getting very large so so as usual if if
you can't bound the derivatives then you
have trouble showing that there's a
convergent some
sequence um so now we come to point four
we have
found f um from D to U Maxim
iing fime of
z0 um here here where f is injective and
holomorphic and now what we want to do
is is we need to
show f is
injective and
surjective and showing it injective is
fairly easy and showing it a surjective
is kind of tricky um so so for showing
it's injective it's not very hard to see
this so suppose the limit Isn't
injective So suppose the um um suppose
you've got D here and um under f it sort
of maps
to something that's not injective so so
it might sort of overlap itself a bit
there and then since the image of this
is open you can see if if you deform it
slightly it's still not injective um but
since f is a limit of some sequence fub1
FS2 F3 and so where all these F I
injective F must also be
injective and this depends on the fact
that D is open by the way if D is closed
then the the limit of injective maps
from D to something need not be
injective um so um we've got the the
tricky part of the whole proof is
proving this limit is is
surjective so how do we do
that um well let's first of
all we we need to show um that if we've
got some map
F going from D to the unit disk
taking um f take Taking z0 to zero we've
got to show that if f
is not on
two we can
find a new um uh function G with G Prime
z0 strictly greater than F Prime of
z0 um and to do this I I first need to
quickly review Mobius
Transformations so we recall that we've
got some mobious Transformations that go
from the unit disk to the unit
disk and these take Z to
a
um um Z minus a over 1 - A Bar Z and
here we can choose any a in in the unit
disc and we can even multiply this by e
to the I Theta where where Theta is some
real
number um and these form for a
group of holomorphic maps from the unit
disc to itself and it acts
transitively um that means it can take
any point in the unit disk to any other
point in the unit dis by by some some
group
element um furthermore it's you can
easily check that the only elements of
this group fixing mapping the mapping Z
the only elements of the group of all
maps the unit dis to itself mapping 0 to
zero are rotations that follows easily
from schwarz's louth I mentioned a bit
earlier so so this is the full group of
all maps from the unit disk to
itself um so now let's try and construct
this function
G so let's think what we've got so we've
got this domain D and we've got a map F
of from D to the unit
disc and it
maps z0 to the
point0 and we're going to suppose that
it emits some point
D it emits some point that I'll write in
blue I think I'll write it in um ink
because blue doesn't seem to show up
very
well um so um if if we think of d as
being some sort of purple region
then we can its image in purple might be
something like
that and then what I'm going to do is
I'm going to apply mobious
transformation and move this point that
it doesn't take move this special point
to zero and let me put a blob in the
middle so it looks the same um and this
purple region will will end up looking
something like that and not the image of
the point Z will now be somewhere here
so this is a
mobious
transformation and now I'm going to
apply the square
root and this will map the um Z to
itself and it will do something funny to
the image of this purple region map it
to something
else and finally I'm going to apply
another mobious
transformation
in order to move this point back to zero
so um things will now look like
this here I have this the image of D
will look something like this and there
will again be another pink point
there and um what I'm going to do is I'm
going to take this map my my new map to
be the composition of all these Maps so
this is my new map G and what we want to
we need to
show that g Prime of
z0 has absolute value greater than fime
of
z0
um and and this will finish the proof um
so how do we do that well um what we do
is we look at this composition let's
call it
h um which goes from this purple region
to this purple region here H isn't
defined on the whole unit this because
we kind of took a square root at this
point and this this will follow
from if we can show that um H Prime of
c0 is has absolute value less than one
by the rule for composition of
derivatives so we've just got to prove
this and this in turn will follow from
the fact that H um if we take the
inverse of H and take its derivative at
sorry that should be a zero not a z0 at
zero then this is absolute value less
than one by the taking the inverse of a
derivative and there are two ways to do
this first of all we could write down an
explicit formula for H it's not too
difficult it's a mobious transformation
followed by square root followed by
mobus
transformation and we could
differentiate explicitly and after about
a page of calculation we could show that
it was did actually have absolute value
um greater than one so that should have
been a greater than one
um so uh um however there's an easy way
to see it without any calculation which
is to observe that H is a holomorphic
map from the unit dis to the unit dis
now schwarz's
Lemma implies that its derivative that
zero is less than one if H is the minus
one is not a
rotation and it's not a rotation because
we've stuck a square root sign in there
I mean I mean if if we just had mve this
Transformations it might have been a
rotation um so this completes the proof
of Ran's mapping theorem notice by the
way there's nothing particularly special
about the square root sign here um all
we need is that the inverse of this Maps
the unit disk to itself in a nice way so
instead of taking square roots we could
also use nth Roots um provided n is
greater than or equal to two um we can't
take n equals 1 because then we gred
this problem that this map might
actually be a
rotation
um