Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2006/paper-1/8/a/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 1 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge 2006 Paper 1 8 a Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
For the Lagrange multiplier equations, use . They give , , and . If , then , implying and therefore , contradicting . Thus only , remain.
The circle is compact and the function is continuous, so global extrema exist. On it, eliminating gives , which is increasing for since its derivative is . ThereforeThese constrained extrema are flat to quadratic order along the circle, so a vanishing second derivative alone would not classify them.
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