Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2015/ii/paper-2/9i/solution

Sperner's lemma says that a triangulated triangle whose vertices are labelled , with each outer vertex having its own label and each boundary edge using only its endpoint labels, contains a small triangle with all three labels. In fact the number of such triangles is odd. Count incidences of small triangles with edges labelled . Interior edges contribute twice. On the outer edge, the number of changes between these labels is odd; the other two outer edges contribute zero. A small triangle contributes one incidence if it has all three labels, two if it uses both but not , and zero otherwise. The total parity proves the assertion.
The resulting no-retraction theorem is: there is no continuous retraction of a closed disc onto its boundary. Work first with a closed triangle . If fixes the boundary, colour each vertex of increasingly fine triangulations by an index of a largest barycentric coordinate of . The largest coordinate is at least ; on the boundary the colouring satisfies Sperner's lemma. Choose a tricoloured small triangle in each triangulation. By compactness and shrinking mesh, a subsequence of their three vertices converges to one point . Continuity forces all three barycentric coordinates of to be at least , so is the triangle's centre, contradicting . A homeomorphism of a disc with proves the disc assertion.
Brouwer fixed-point theorem states that every continuous self-map of a closed disc has a fixed point. If it had none, the ray from through would meet the boundary beyond , continuously in . That intersection defines a retraction, since a boundary point is already the outgoing intersection. This contradicts the no-retraction theorem.
Finally fix and define . The displacement bound implies , so maps the closed radius- disc centred at into itself. Brouwer fixed-point theorem gives , which is exactly . Since was arbitrary, is surjective.

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