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An $n$-dimensional smooth manifold is a Hausdorff space with a countable topological base, equipped with a smooth atlas of homeomorphisms from open subsets onto open subsets of ${\mathbb{R}}^n$, whose overlap maps are smooth diffeomorphisms. The smooth structure is the maximal smooth atlas compatible with these manifold charts. Here manifolds have no boundary unless specified otherwise.

For a space with all the requested topological properties but no such atlas, take the topological tripod: three closed intervals joined at one endpoint. It is a compact connected subspace of the plane with its induced metric. A countable base of planar rational balls restricts to a countable base, the metric makes it Hausdorff, and compactness gives a finite subcover of every open cover, hence a locally finite refinement and paracompactness.

At an interior point of any arm, arbitrarily small neighborhoods are intervals. A coordinate ball in dimension at least two would remain connected after deleting its center; an interval does not. Dimension zero would make the space discrete. Thus any possible connected manifold structure would have dimension one. But a sufficiently small neighborhood of the junction, minus the junction, has three components, whereas an interval chart has two. This contradiction rules out even a topological manifold structure, and hence any smooth one.

The product smooth structure uses manifold charts $(\varphi ,\psi ):U\times V\to \varphi (U)\times \psi (V)\subset {\mathbb{R}}^{m+n}$. Transition maps act separately in the two coordinate blocks and are smooth with smooth inverses. Products of countable bases give a countable base, and the product remains Hausdorff. Therefore $\boxed{\dim (M\times N)=\dim M+\dim N}$ with this natural smooth structure.

Define the tangent space by point derivations: a tangent vector at $x$ is an $\mathbb{R}$-linear map $D$ on germs of smooth functions at $x$, satisfying $D(ab)=a(x)D(b)+b(x)D(a)$. Addition and scalar multiplication preserve this rule, so these derivations form a vector space. In coordinates $u^1,\dots ,u^n$, the local identityfollows by integrating the derivative of $h$ along the coordinate line segment. Derivations annihilate constants, so it gives $Dh={\sum }_{i}D(u^i){\partial }_{i}h(u(x))$. The coordinate derivations ${\partial }_i{|}_x$ are independent since they evaluate the coordinate functions as ${\delta }_i^j$. ThusFor a smooth map, define the differential of a smooth map intrinsically by $(f_{\ast }D)(h)=D(h\circ f)$. It is again linear and satisfies the derivation rule at $f(x)$, so it maps $T_{x}M$ into $T_{f(x)}N$. Its coordinate matrix is the Jacobian of the coordinate expression of $f$, independently of the charts by the intrinsic definition and chain rule.

Finally, a zero differential forces each target coordinate function to have all derivatives zero on a small connected source coordinate ball mapping into one target chart. Integration on straight segments makes those functions constant there. Hence $f$ is locally constant. Each nonempty fiber is both open and closed, so connectedness gives the zero-differential constancy theorem, $\boxed{f\text{ is constant}}$.