Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematical-methods-ii-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2019/3/solution
Past exam of the mathematical methods II course of the University of Oxford 2019 3 Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-25
The real logarithm restricts the domain to . Differentiating givesSince cannot vanish in the domain, a stationary point requires . The logarithm is strictly increasing, so this equation has exactly one solution:The second derivative is , giving . In fact is negative below and positive above it, so the point is the unique global minimum on . The boundary value is not an additional stationary point, since the original function is not defined there.
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