Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 December 2009
The following conjecture generalizing the Contraction Mapping Theorem was made by Stein.
Let (X, ρ) be a complete metric space and let ℱ = {T1,…, Tn} be a finite family of self-maps of X. Suppose that there is a constant γ ∈ (0, 1) such that, for any x, y ∈ X, there exists T ∈ ℱ with ρ(T(x), T(y)) ≤ γρ(x, y). Then some composition of members of ℱ has a fixed point.
In this paper this conjecture is disproved, We also show that it does hold for a (continuous) commuting ℱ in the case n = 2. It is conjectured that it holds for commuting ℱ for any n.