It is well known that, with a particular choice of norm, the classical double-layer potential operator $D$ has essential norm $<1/2$ as an operator on the natural trace space $H^{1/2}(Gamma)$ whenever $Gamma$ is the boundary of a bounded Lipschitz domain. This implies, for the standard second-kind boundary integral equations for the interior and exterior Dirichlet and Neumann problems in potential theory, convergence of the Galerkin method in $H^{1/2}(Gamma)$ for any sequence of finite-dimensional subspaces $(mathcal{H}_N)_{N=1}^infty$ that is asymptotically dense in $H^{1/2}(Gamma)$. Long-standing open questions are whether the essential norm is also $<1/2$ for $D$ as an operator on $L^2(Gamma)$ for all Lipschitz $Gamma$ in 2-d; or whether, for all Lipschitz $Gamma$ in 2-d and 3-d, or at least for the smaller class of Lipschitz polyhedra in 3-d, the weaker condition holds that the operators $pm frac{1}{2}I+D$ are compact perturbations of coercive operators -- this a necessary and sufficient condition for the convergence of the Galerkin method for every sequence of subspaces $(mathcal{H}_N)_{N=1}^infty$ that is asymptotically dense in $L^2(Gamma)$. We settle these open questions negatively. We give examples of 2-d and 3-d Lipschitz domains with Lipschitz constant equal to one for which the essential norm of $D$ is $geq 1/2$, and examples with Lipschitz constant two for which the operators $pm frac{1}{2}I +D$ are not coercive plus compact. We also give, for every $C>0$, examples of Lipschitz polyhedra for which the essential norm is $geq C$ and for which $lambda I+D$ is not a compact perturbation of a coercive operator for any real or complex $lambda$ with $|lambda|leq C$. Finally, we resolve negatively a related open question in the convergence theory for collocation methods.
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