Lusternik–Schnirelmann theorem

A cover of $S^d$ by $d+1$ closed sets has a member containing an antipodal pair. The equivalent version for open sets follows by shrinking finite open covers on a compact metric space; the reverse implication follows by enlarging antipodal-pair-free closed sets slightly. This is a covering formulation of the Borsuk-Ulam theorem.

Let $v_0,\dots ,v_{n+1}$ be the vertices of a regular simplex centered at zero in ${\mathbb{R}}^{n+1}$. The displayed spherical Voronoi cells are a closed cover by $n+2$ sets. If $x$ and $-x$ belonged to the same cell, all their scalar products with the vertices would coincide. Their sum is zero and the vertices span the ambient vector space, so this would force $x=0$, a contradiction. Thus each cell contains no antipodal pair. Together with the Lusternik-Schnirelmann-Borsuk theorem, this shows $n+2$ is the minimum number of antipodal-free members of a finite closed cover.

For a finite open cover $U_0,\dots ,U_d$ of $S^d$, take continuous nonnegative functions ${\varphi }_i$ summing to one and positive only in $U_i$. Such a partition of unity comes from normalizing the distance to a set functions $d(x,S^d\setminus U_i)$. The Borsuk-Ulam theorem applied to $({\varphi }_1,\dots ,{\varphi }_d)$ gives equal values at an antipodal pair. The sum condition makes ${\varphi }_0$ equal too, and some common positive value places both points in one $U_i$.