Freedman's $E_8$-manifold is nontriangulable, as proved on page (xvi) of the Akbulut-McCarthy 1990 Princeton Mathematical Notes "Casson's invariant for oriented homology 3-spheres". Kirby showed that a compact 4-manifold has a handlebody structure if and only if it is smoothable: 1 and 2. When is a compact topological 4-manifold a CW complex?
When is a compact topological 4-manifold a CW complex?
Andrew Ranicki
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