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.
Sperner's lemma says that if a triangle is triangulated, its vertices are labelled , and label is forbidden on the edge opposite vertex , then an odd number of small triangles have all three labels.
To prove it, count incidences with edges whose endpoint labels are and . Along the outer -edge, the labels begin at and end at , so the number of transitions is odd; no other boundary edge contributes. An interior edge contributes twice. A small triangle contributes an odd number precisely when its three labels are : a triangle using only contributes two, and every other non-tricoloured triangle contributes zero. The number of tricoloured triangles is therefore odd.
Now suppose the closed sets in the question existed. Let be the distance from a point to a closed set . Empty triple intersection makes , so
is a continuous function from the large triangle to itself, where is the vertex opposite . Since the cover the triangle, at least one vanishes, so always lies on the boundary. On , its th barycentric coordinate vanishes, hence . Thus is face-preserving on the boundary; its boundary restriction is homotopic there to the identity by the straight-line homotopy. This would give a map from the triangle into its boundary whose boundary degree is one, contradicting the no-retraction theorem, the standard topological consequence of Sperner's lemma. Therefore the three closed sets must have a common point.
The equivalent no-retraction theorem says there is no continuous retraction of the closed disk onto its boundary circle. A fixed-point-free map gives a retraction by projecting from through to the boundary; conversely a retraction composed with the antipodal boundary map gives a fixed-point-free self-map.
The planar Brouwer fixed-point theorem says every continuous has a fixed point. The equivalent no-retraction theorem says no continuous restricts to the identity on . A fixed-point-free map gives a retraction by extending the ray from through to the boundary; a retraction followed by the antipodal map gives a fixed-point-free self-map.
Suppose the stated sphere map is not onto and omits . Compactness gives such that its image lies in . That set is homeomorphic to a closed disc. Restricting to it gives a continuous self-map of a disc, so Brouwer supplies a fixed point, contrary to the hypothesis. Hence is surjective.