Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2023/ii/paper-3/25g/b/solution

A plane has both principal curvatures zero, hence . A circular cylinder of radius has principal curvatures and , hence
Because the absolute value of mean curvature is preserved even if one reverses the chosen orientation, no Euclidean motion can carry any open piece of the cylinder to an open piece of the plane. Thus the condition does not characterize planar pieces.
There are analogous examples for both signs of constant Gaussian curvature. Start with the arc-length surface of revolution
On a sufficiently small interval about , this is a regular surface and the curvatures of an arc-length surface of revolution give
At its mean curvature is
For this is a piece of the unit sphere and , whereas for it equals . By continuity, sufficiently small pieces around their central circles have disjoint ranges of , so no pieces in those chosen neighbourhoods are related by a Euclidean motion.
For curvature minus one, use
again on a sufficiently small interval. Then
The choices and give and . Restricting to small enough pieces again separates the ranges of . The constant Gaussian curvature surfaces of revolution therefore supply the requested noncongruent examples for and .

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