Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2019/paper-1/14/b/solution

Work on an open domain with and , where the displayed square root is real and differentiable. Split with and . For the first term, the chain rule gives
so .
For the second term, set . Its first partial derivatives are
They show , the degree-one case of Euler theorem for homogeneous functions. Differentiating that identity with respect to each variable yields
The mixed partial derivatives agree here by the chain rule. Multiplying these equations by and , respectively, proves the second derivative identity for a degree-one homogeneous function:
Adding the results for and verifies the partial differential equation
Equivalently, for positive , so the same proof follows directly from its homogeneous function property. The statement is local to a domain where the given expression is defined; it does not require assigning values on .

New to topics? Read the docs here!