Contradiction with Banach Fixed Point Theorem

$e^{-x}$ does not map $[2,\infty)$ into itself.


$e^{-2}$ is not in the interval $[2,\infty)$, so the image of the interval is not contained within the interval; i.e. $g$ does not map the interval to itself. In fact, the interval and its image are disjoint, so there can't possibly be a fixed point. One way of thinking of the Banach fixed-point theorem is that if you have an interval that is mapped to itself, then you can find a a sub-interval that is mapped to that sub-interval, and a sub-sub-interval of that sub-interval that is mapped to that sub-sub-interval, and so on, and the limit of that process is a single point that's mapped to itself. Once you get an interval that isn't mapped to itself, though, that interval doesn't necessarily have a fixed point, even though the space as a whole does. If you don't check that an interval is mapped to itself, you would find that the BFPT requires every interval to contain a fixed point, which is clearly absurd.