The aftermath of the intermediate value theorem (Q2388428)

This paper gives a list of generalizations of the intermediate value property, starting from the elementary form on the real axis to monotone operator theory in reflexive Banach spaces. The first elementary result presented is Bolzano's theorem which states that any continuous function which takes values with opposite signs on the boundary of a compact real interval must vanish at least one time. In fact, topological degree techniques are used to establish other generalizations in the case of \(n\)-dimensional cubes in \(\mathbb R^n\), then for compact perturbations of the identity in Hilbert spaces (also called Leray--Schauder operators in topological degree theory). In fact, the cited result in the paper is less general than the well-known Leray--Schauder fixed point theorem. Natural extensions follow in the case of operators of monotone type in reflexive Banach spaces, where the scalar product is replaced by the duality map between the space \(X\) and its dual \(X^*\).