Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-year-1-of-the-computer-science-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2015/discrete-mathematics-continuous-mathematics-and-probability/5/a/iii/solution

Near zero, has the sign of , so just to the left and just to the right. Thus the critical point is neither a local minimum nor a local maximum. Moreover the Taylor series gives , which changes sign at zero. Therefore
This is the point called a “saddle point” in the question; stationary inflection point specifies the one-variable meaning.

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