Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2015/paper-1/2/a/solution

At a single point of contact the line is a tangent line, so its slope equals the derivative of the exponential function. At the contact coordinate ,
Since , dividing gives , hence . To verify uniqueness, the difference has positive second derivative everywhere and its unique minimum is zero at . Thus this line touches the curve once.

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