Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2003 / ib / Paper 1 / 1F / i

We prove the equivalence by a cycle of implications. First assume closedness and boundedness. Given a sequence $(x_j)$ in $E$, boundedness puts each coordinate in a fixed closed bounded real interval. Apply the one-dimensional Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem to its first coordinate to extract a convergent subsequence, then apply it to the second coordinate of that subsequence, and continue through the finitely many coordinates. The final subsequence converges coordinatewise to some $x\in {\mathbb{R}}^n$. It also converges in the Euclidean norm, since the sum of the squares of its finitely many coordinate differences tends to zero. Since $E$ is a closed set, this limit belongs to $E$. Thus closedness and boundedness imply the required subsequence property. No higher-dimensional compactness theorem has been assumed.