Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2007/ib/paper-3/4a/a/solution

Every point has arbitrarily small path-connected open neighbourhoods. Indeed, in a coordinate chart homeomorphic to , take the inverse image of a sufficiently small open Euclidean ball. The ball is convex, hence path-connected, and its inverse image is path-connected by the homeomorphism. If the supplied neighbourhood is not itself open, first take an open neighbourhood within it and a ball contained in its chart image. This proves that is a locally path-connected space.
Fix and let consist of the points joined to by a path. For , a path-connected open neighbourhood is contained in : concatenate a path from to with one from to any point of . Hence is open. For , the same kind of neighbourhood cannot meet , since a meeting point would provide a path to . Hence is also open. Since is a connected space and is nonempty, . This proves is path-connected, including the general principle that connected locally path-connected spaces are path-connected. The empty-space case, if allowed, is vacuous.

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