Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2024/paper-2/19/a/solution

A central cross-section of the sphere gives the constraint , and the cylinder's volume is . At an interior optimum with , the Lagrange multiplier equations for this constrained optimization problem are
The first gives ; substitution into the second gives . The constraint then gives
The feasible nonnegative form a compact arc, whose endpoints have zero volume. Since this is the only positive stationary candidate, it is the global maximum. Its volume and fraction of the sphere's volume are

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