Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2005/iii/paper-16/2/b/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 iii Paper 16 2 b Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
A compact metric space is second countable. To see this concretely, for each positive integer choose a finite cover by balls of radius . Their centres, over all , form a countable dense subset; balls centred there with positive rational radii form a countable basis of a topology. Enumerate its nonempty members as , repeating members if the basis is finite.
For each , putEach is an open set, because all iterations of a map are continuous. It is dense: if is any nonempty open set, the hypothesis supplies and with , so .
A compact metric space is a complete metric space, hence a Baire space. The Baire category theorem implies that is dense, and in particular nonempty. For any , the forward orbit of meets every , and therefore every nonempty open set. Its orbit closure is . Thus the open-set intersection hypothesis implies point transitivity, and in fact the set of points with a dense forward orbit contains the dense intersection .
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