Importance

Obviously, there are continuous maps that are not smooth. The question is, can you approximate any continuous function arbitrarily close using a smooth one. The answer: yes!

Statement (for functions to )

Suppose is a smooth manifold and is a continuous function. For any positive continuous function , there exists a smooth function that is close to .

If is smooth on a closed subset , then can be chosen such that .

Proof

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General Statement

For smooth manifolds ( without boundary) and a continuous map, is homotopic to a smooth map. If is already smooth on a closed subset , then the homotopy can be taken to be relative to .

Proof

todo