 Weierstrass necessary condition

At a strong local minimizer of a variational integral, almost every reference slope $u^{\prime }(x)$ is a point of convexity of $v\mapsto f(x,u(x),v)$. Equivalently its Weierstrass excess function is nonnegative for every trial slope. Uniformly small variations can have large derivatives, which is why this condition tests all trial slopes rather than only nearby ones. It is a necessary condition along the minimizing curve; the strengthened Weierstrass condition additionally controls a neighborhood of that curve and its slopes.