Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2024/paper-2/12/d/solution

The Hessian matrix is
At each nonzero stationary point, its diagonal entries are and the off-diagonal entries are . Its eigenvalues are and , both positive. Thus the Hessian matrix is positive definite, and the second-derivative test proves that
Their common value is . In fact they are global minima: with , the arithmetic-geometric mean inequality gives , so
The last one-variable polynomial attains its minimum at , and equality in the first bound requires , precisely the four points above.

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