TITLE: Is there a continuous injection from the unit square to the unit interval?
QUESTION [11 upvotes]: I see that the Peano curve is a continuous surjection from the unit interval to the unit square (correct me if I'm wrong). Does it then follow that there is a continuous injection from the unit square to the unit interval?
Thank you!

REPLY [6 votes]: The other three answers provide reasons for why there is no continuous injection from the unit square to the unit interval.  But I wanted to show why you're specific argument fails.
The issue is that a continuous surjection $f:[0,1]\rightarrow [0,1]^2 $ will fail to be injective.  The quick reason is that an injective continuous map between compact Hausdorff spaces is automatcally a homeomorphism onto its image, and $[0,1]$ and $[0,1]^2$ are not homeomorphic (as the other answers show).
So, since $f$ is surjective, there is an inverse injective function $g:[0,1]^2\rightarrow [0,1]$, but it involves making many choices.  This is because whenever you have $y=f(x_1) = f(x_2)$ with $x_1\neq x_2$, then you must make a choice for $g(y)$.  Should $g(y) = x_1$ or $g(y) = x_2$?  (In worse cases, there aren't just $2$ different $x$s mapping to the same $y$, but sometimes infinitely many).
How do you make such a choice?  Well you can, but not in any canonical fashion.  Hence, while you do get an injective function $g:[0,1]^2\rightarrow [0,1]$, due to all the choices you had to make, it won't be continuous.