An answer to a question of J.W. Cannon and S.G. Wayment

Abstract

Solving R.J. Daverman's problem, V. Krushkal described sticky Cantor sets in $\mathbb R^N$ for $N\geqslant 4$; these sets cannot be isotoped off of itself by small ambient isotopies. Using Krushkal sets, we answer a question of J.W. Cannon and S.G. Wayment (1970). Namely, for $N\geqslant 4$ we construct compacta $X\subset \mathbb R^N$ with the following two properties: some sequence $\{ X_i \subset \mathbb R^N \setminus X, \ i\in\mathbb N \}$ converges homeomorphically to $X$, but there is no uncountable family of pairwise disjoint sets $Y_\alpha \subset \mathbb R^N$ each of which is embedded equivalently to $X$.