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/b/solution

The gradient is . Its second component vanishes only if or . The latter gives the impossible first-component equation . With , the first component gives or . The Hessian matrix is
At it has eigenvalues , giving a saddle point. At its eigenvalues are , giving a strict local minimum, of value . These are all real stationary points. The minimum is local: for example as .

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