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First of all, I am aware of the questions about the Zariski topology asked here and I am also aware of the discussion at the Secret Blogging Seminar. But I could not find an answer to a question that bugged me right from my first steps in algebraic geometry: how can I really motivate the Zariski topology on a scheme?

For example in classical algebraic geometry over an algebraically closed field I can define the Zariski topology as the coarsest $T_1$-topology such that all polynomial functions are continuous. I think that this is a great definition when I say that I am working with polynomials and want to make my algebraic set into a local ringed space. But what can I say in the general case of an affine scheme?

Of course I can say that I want to have a fully faithful functor from rings into local ringed spaces and this construction works, but this is not a motivation.

For example for the prime spectrum itself, all motivations I came across so far are as follows: well, over an algebraically closed field we can identify the points with maximal ideals, but in general inverse images of maximal ideals are not maximal ideals, so let's just take prime ideals and...wow, it works. But now that I know that one gets the prime spectrum from the corresponding functor (one can of course also start with a functor) by imposing an equivalence relation on geometric points (which I find very geometric!), I finally found a great motivation for this. What is left is the Zariski topology..topology, and so far I just came across similar strange motivations as above...

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# How can I really motivate the Zariski topology on a scheme?

First of all, I am aware of the questions about the Zariski topology asked here and I am also aware of the discussion at the Secret Blogging Seminar. But I could not find an answer to a question that bugged me right from my first steps in algebraic geometry: how can I really motivate the Zariski topology on a scheme?

For example in classical algebraic geometry over an algebraically closed field I can define the Zariski topology as the coarsest $T_1$-topology such that all polynomial functions are continuous. I think that this is a great definition when I say that I am working with polynomials and want to make my algebraic set into a local ringed space. But what can I say in the general case of an affine scheme?

Of course I can say that I want to have a fully faithful functor from rings into local ringed spaces and this construction works, but this is not a motivation.

For example for the prime spectrum itself, all motivations I came across so far are as follows: well, over an algebraically closed field we can identify the points with maximal ideals, but in general inverse images of maximal ideals are not maximal ideals, so let's just take prime ideals and...wow, it works. But now that I know that one gets the prime spectrum from the corresponding functor (one can of course also start with a functor) by imposing an equivalence relation on geometric points (which I find very geometric!), I finally found a great motivation for this. What is left is the Zariski topology...