Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2011/paper-2/13/c/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 1 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge 2011 Paper 2 13 c Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-18
Since , a level can occur only for . Taking its natural logarithm gives . Thus produces rectangular hyperbolas in the first and third quadrants, produces them in the second and fourth quadrants, and consists of both coordinate axes.
The gradient vanishes only at , where . The Hessian matrix there is , with negative determinant. Equivalently, while for nonzero small . Hence the only stationary point is a saddle point at on the graph; its location in the contour plane is the origin.
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