Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-differential-equations-and-applications-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2009/b/6/a/solution

At such an interior backward-in-time maximum, spatial differentiation gives and . Comparison with earlier times at the same spatial point gives the one-sided time derivative ; differentiability makes this the usual derivative. Consequently , contradicting the strictly positive source . Therefore no such maximum can occur. The temporal one-sided argument matters because the condition concerns only the past of the candidate point.

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