Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2023/paper-2/20/a/solution

Seek a separated solution . On a region where the factors do not vanish, the partial differential equation separates as
The resulting ordinary differential equations integrate to and on either side of . Choose and the signed linear branch , which extends smoothly across that line. This yields the nonconstant solution
Direct partial differentiation gives and , whose prescribed combination vanishes everywhere. This direct check also covers the line on which the separated factor is zero.

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