Lemma 4.1

  Let Y be a topological space. Suppose is a continuous map such that

 

for all , and all . (Here v0 denotes the vector v with 0 appended, etc.) Then the image of f is path connected.

Proof

Let and be elements of the image we wish to connect by a path. Find , such that have the same first coordinate, and , have the same first coordinate and . (If have the same first coordinate, take ; otherwise apply the hypothesis with v as the empty vector.) Let be this common value.

Next find , , using the same argument, such that agree in the first two coordinates, , agree in the first two coordinates, and . Let be this common value. Do the analogous thing at 3/4.

By induction, we may continue to define , , at all dyadic rationals in , such that and agree in the first n coordinates and

By induction, we see that all the with agree in the first n coordinates. Hence for

not a dyadic rational, we may define

and . Then w maps into where is the first n coordinates of , , and of .

We now show that w is continuous at . Let U be an open set of Y containing . Then contains and for some finite substrings of respectively, by continuity of f. By the last sentence of the previous paragraph it follows that

will contain a neighborhood of r.

Thus is a continuous path, and image is path connected.