The space obtained by identifying the antipodal points of a circle
Take the unit circle $S^1$ in $\Bbb{R}^2$ and partition it into subsets which contain exactly two points, the points being antipodal (at opposite ends of a diameter). $P$ is the resulting identification space.
Now, what is homeomorphic to $P$? My intuition says that it must be a semicircle. But couldn't construct a homeomorphism.
Identify antipodal points on the circle:
Form the identification space:
Moving along this space, you come back to where you started... just like on a circle:
(original gifs here and here; I joined them because when they load at different times in the browser, they don't stay in sync)
This correspondence between the points of $P$ and the points of $S^1$ is a homeomorphism.
PlotUpTo[angle_, colorscale_] := ParametricPlot[{Cos[t], Sin[t]}, {t, 0, angle}, PlotStyle -> Thickness[0.05], ColorFunctionScaling -> False, ColorFunction -> Function[{x, y}, Hue[colorscale (Arg[-x - I y] + Pi)/(2 Pi )]], PlotRange -> All, PlotRangeClipping -> False, ImageSize -> {300}, Axes -> None] AnimatedMarker[time_, speed_] := Graphics[{PointSize[0.05], Point[{Cos[speed 2 Pi time], Sin[speed 2 Pi time]}], White, PointSize[0.03], Point[{Cos[speed 2 Pi time], Sin[speed 2 Pi time]}]}] AnimatedPlot[angle_, colorscale_, time_, speed_] := Show[PlotUpTo[angle, colorscale], AnimatedMarker[time, speed]] Export["animation.gif", Table[Rasterize[ TableForm[{{AnimatedPlot[Pi, 2, t, 1/2]}, {AnimatedPlot[2 Pi, 1, t, 1]}}, TableSpacing -> {10, 0}]], {t, 0, 1, 0.01}], "DisplayDurations" -> {0.04}]
Start with $S^1$, as in the first figure below. Hold it at $c'$ and $c$, and flip the righthand side over to form an $\infty$ sign, as in the second figure. Now fold the loops together into a single loop, as in the third figure. Everything matches up properly to give you your quotient space: it’s $S^1$ again.
Consider the (complex) function $f(z) = z^2$ from the circle onto itself (seeing the plane as the complex plane). This identifies exactly the antipodal points on the circle. So this map induces a homeomporphism between $S^1$ modulo this equivalence and $S^1$.