Tingley's Problem, Separable Quotient Problem and 8 More in Functional Analysis

Resolves Tingley's problem: every surjective isometry between the unit spheres of nonzero real Banach spaces extends uniquely to a surjective real-linear isometry of the whole spaces. No dimension restriction is imposed, so the metric geometry of the unit sphere determines the Banach space up to linear isometry. (Lean)

Establishes, relative to the consistency of a measurable cardinal, that the separable quotient problem is independent of ZFC. The assertion that every infinite-dimensional Banach space has a separable infinite-dimensional quotient can hold for all real and complex Banach spaces, whereas the continuum hypothesis yields counterexamples over both fields. (Lean)

Resolves the cotype–cotype conjecture for real Banach spaces with the approximation property. Such a nonzero space is K-convex if and only if both it and its dual have finite Rademacher cotype, with possibly different exponents. Equivalently, these cotype assumptions force nontrivial Rademacher type. (Lean)

Disproves Pietsch's dimension-free duality conjecture for metric entropy. Origin-symmetric convex bodies violate every proposed choice of universal constants in the conjectured comparison between covering numbers and those of the polar bodies, even when the covering body is a cube. (Lean)

Constructs a countable uniformly discrete metric space whose real Lipschitz-free Banach space has the approximation property but not the bounded approximation property, answering Kalton's question negatively. Finite-rank operators approximate the identity on every compact set, but their norms cannot share a finite bound. (Lean)

Proves that real ℓ1 has metric Markov cotype two, answering Mendel and Naor's question. Consequently, every Lipschitz map from an arbitrary subset of a real Hilbert space into ℓ1 extends to the whole space with a universal multiplicative loss in its Lipschitz constant, resolving Ball's extension problem for this target.

Constructs separable real Banach spaces that are globally bi-Lipschitz equivalent but not linearly isomorphic, resolving the separable Lipschitz-isomorphism problem negatively. Thus even the complete metric structure up to bi-Lipschitz equivalence does not determine a separable Banach space's linear isomorphism class. (Lean)

Proves that every real Banach space with Markov type p for some p > 1 admits an equivalent uniformly convex norm, answering Naor's renorming question. Together with the known converse, this characterizes superreflexivity by nontrivial Markov type. (Lean)

Resolves Kirk's reflexive-space fixed-point problem: every nonexpansive selfmap of a nonempty closed bounded convex subset of a real reflexive Banach space has a fixed point. The result uses the original norm, without assuming uniform convexity. (Lean)

Constructs a real reflexive Banach space with an asymptotically midpoint uniformly convex norm but no equivalent asymptotically uniformly convex norm, extending Baudier's separation to reflexive spaces. In the same space, depth-k countably branching diamonds require distortion at least √(1+k/12), so midpoint uniform convexity does not force uniformly bounded diamond distortion even under reflexivity. (Lean)