A finite CW complex can be defined without assuming separation properties in advance. Start with a finite discrete set . Inductively form from by identifying each boundary point with its image under a continuous attaching map . Only finitely many disks are attached in total, and for some finite . The interiors of the disks are its cells. Its weak topology of a CW complex is the final topology of the characteristic maps: a subset is closed exactly when its inverse image in every characteristic disk is closed. In this finite construction it is the topology obtained by the successive quotients. Closure-finiteness is automatic because there are only finitely many cells.
Here is a direct proof of both requested topological properties, without presupposing that arbitrary attaching maps give a triangulable space. Suppose the compact previous stage embeds by , and attach one -cell, . Extend the boundary coordinate map radially by
It is continuous at zero because the image of the sphere is bounded. Map the two pieces into by
At these agree with the attaching identification. They therefore induce a continuous map on the quotient. Its restriction to the old stage is injective. An interior point has positive last coordinate , and the preceding coordinate block recovers by division by . Hence it cannot coincide with an old point or another interior point. The induced map is injective.
The quotient is compact, being the image of a compact disjoint union. A continuous injection into Euclidean space is Hausdorff, by inverse images of disjoint separating neighborhoods; it is also a homeomorphism onto its image because closed subsets of the compact source have compact, hence closed, images in the Hausdorff target. Finite discrete embeds in , and induction over the finite list of cells proves is Hausdorff and its weak topology is exactly an induced Euclidean subspace topology. This is Euclidean embedding by finite cell attachment; no optimal ambient dimension is needed.
For Real projective space, filter by . The complement of in is an affine -cell. A characteristic disk is a hemisphere of , whose boundary is attached by the antipodal quotient . Thus there is one cell in every dimension .
The incidence number is the sum of the two sheet contributions. Fixing the orientation of one sheet gives degree one; the other differs by the antipodal map on , whose degree is . Consequently the cellular homology of real projective space has
Taking kernels modulo images gives, for ,
Over , multiplication by two is invertible, so
Over , every differential vanishes, giving for , and zero otherwise. For the space is a point and only degree-zero homology is present, with the chosen coefficient group.