On the parallel between normality and extremal disconnectedness

Several familiar results about normal and extremally disconnected (classical or pointfree) spaces shape the idea that the two notions are somehow dual to each other and can therefore be studied in parallel. This paper investigates the source of this ‘duality’ and shows that each pair of parallel results can be framed by the ‘same’ proof. The key tools for this purpose are relative notions of normality, extremal disconnectedness, semicontinuity and continuity (with respect to a fixed class of complemented sublocales of the given locale) that bring and extend to locale theory a variety of well-known classical variants of normality and upper and lower semicontinuities in an illuminating unified manner. This approach allows us to unify under a single localic proof all classical insertion, as well as their corresponding extension results.