Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2008/paper-1/17/a/iv/solution

The interior values satisfy away from the minimum. The contours are closed curves surrounding , approximately ellipses near that point, and approach the three edges as the level tends to zero. To see their shape globally, put , , . These are positive inside and satisfy , while . Since is strictly concave, its nonempty superlevel sets are convex and surround the unique maximum of . Thus the negative contours nest without additional components, as in the figure.

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