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I really like the following result, which allows one to drop the usual compactness assumption.

Okhezin's theorem: For a polyhedron $K$ and a continouous map $f\colon K\to K$ at least one of the following conditions is true:

  • $f$ has a fixed point;
  • $f$ is not nullhomotopic;
  • $K$ contains a closed subset homeomorphic to $[0,\infty)$ (a closed ray).

Since $[0,\infty)$ is an absolute retract without fixed point property, no polyhedron containing it as a closed subset has the fixed point property. This gives the following corollary.

Corollary (Okhezin): A contractible polyhedron has the fixed point property if and only if it is rayless, i.e. contains no closed subset homeomorphic to $[0,\infty)$.

Okhezin also proved some fixed point theorems that apply to other classes of rayless spaces, including some Lefschetz-type results. However, it is not known whether a rayless, acyclic polyhedron has the fixed point property.