TITLE: Topologies and completeness
QUESTION [9 upvotes]: Is it possible to have two norms on the same space, the topology of one being strictly finer than the other, yet the space is complete in both norms?

REPLY [10 votes]: This is not possible. Fix a space $X$ with two complete norms $\|\cdot\|_1, \|\cdot\|_2$ such that the topology induced by $\|\cdot\|_1$ is finer than the one induced by $\|\cdot\|_2$. Let $B_i$ denote the unit ball for $\|\cdot\|_i$.
In particular, $B_2$ is also open for $\|\cdot\|_1$ and so there is $\varepsilon > 0$ such that $\varepsilon B_1 \subseteq B_2$. Hence $\frac{\varepsilon}{2} S_1 \subseteq \varepsilon B_1 \subseteq B_2$ where $S_1 = \{x: \|x\|_1 = 1\}$. This means that for every $x \in X$, we have that
$$\left \| \frac{\varepsilon x}{2 \|x\|_1} \right \|_2 \leq 1$$
which implies that
$$\|x\|_2 \leq \frac{2}{\varepsilon} \|x\|_1.$$
That is, the identity map from $(X, \|\cdot\|_1)$ to $(X, \| \cdot \|_2)$ is continuous. Hence by the open mapping theorem, the identity map from $(X, \| \cdot \|_2)$ to $(X, \|\cdot\|_1)$ is continuous also which means that 
$$\|x\|_1 \leq C \|x\|_2$$
for some constant $C$. Hence the two norms are equivalent and so induce the same topology.