Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2020/ii/paper-4/2h/solution

A subset of a metric space is nowhere dense when the interior of its closure is empty. One form of the Baire category theorem says that a nonempty complete metric space cannot be a countable union of nowhere dense closed sets; equivalently, a countable intersection of dense open sets is dense.
Fix and work in the complete interval . For define the closed set
The sets are closed by the continuity of , and the assumed pointwise convergence gives . The Baire category theorem therefore gives an and a nonempty open interval contained in .
The intervals overlap once , which holds for every sufficiently large natural number . Their union consequently contains a half-line. Every sufficiently large can therefore be written as with and , and then . Since was arbitrary, as .

New to topics? Read the docs here!