Existence of second partial derivatives does not justify the Hessian test

ID: existence-of-second-partial-derivatives-does-not-justify-the-hessian-test

Define and, elsewhere,
All first and second partial derivatives exist at the origin: and . Thus its Hessian matrix there is the positive-definite matrix . Nevertheless and for , so the origin is a saddle point of a scalar function. A valid second-derivative test needs a second-order Taylor expansion with a remainder ; continuous second partial derivatives in a neighborhood are a sufficient hypothesis. Existence of those derivatives at the point alone does not supply this hypothesis.

New to topics? Read the docs here!