Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2016/paper-1/12/b/i/solution

The first partial derivatives factor as
If either coordinate vanishes, the other equation forces the other coordinate to vanish as well. If both are nonzero, subtracting the two bracket equations gives , and then . Thus the complete list of stationary points is and the four points .
The Hessian matrix is
At the origin it is , which is a positive-definite matrix. At the four other points its eigenvalues are and , independently of the signs. The second-derivative test therefore gives
There are no local maxima. The minimum at the origin is not global, since as .

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