Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2001/ib/paper-4/1a/solution

The strict distance inequality also gives when , so is Lipschitz continuous with constant at most one, hence continuous. Put . The triangle inequality gives
Thus is also Lipschitz continuous and continuous.
Assume the compact metric space is nonempty, as needed for existence of a point. By the extreme value theorem, attains its infimum at some . If , then , and strict distance decrease gives
contradicting minimality. Since distances are nonnegative, and . If two different fixed points existed, then , another contradiction. Therefore there is exactly one fixed point. This is strict distance decrease on a compact metric space; no uniform contraction factor less than one was assumed.

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