Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2022/ii/paper-1/26i/c/solution

No. If the image lies in a great circle, there is a fixed unit vector with , so is tangent to everywhere. Since the ambient derivative of this constant vector is zero, the shape operator satisfies . One principal curvature is therefore zero. Minimality makes their sum zero, so both vanish and . The Gauss map is then locally constant, and connectedness makes it constant on all of , contradicting its image being a great circle.

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