Let near . The chain rule gives
Substitute into the first three terms of the Taylor expansion:
The quadratic coefficient is , not . The apparent square root creates no local difficulty at the positive expansion point.
For , Taylor's theorem after terms, counting the constant term, is
Under the usual hypothesis that is times continuously differentiable on the interval joining and , and times differentiable in its interior, the Taylor theorem with Lagrange remainder gives
This is a finite expansion with a controlled remainder; it does not assume an infinite Taylor series converges. For the remainder is zero.
The arc length follows from the speed of the parametrization:
Here inside the given interval. Therefore
The result scales as a length, while the preceding area scales as , as required by dimensional analysis.
Because along the arch, its area above the baseline is the definite integral . Changing to the parameter gives
Adding or removing the two endpoint points does not change the area. This is the area formula in area and length of a cycloid arch.
The original PDF specifies slope ; the transcription's is erroneous. By part (a), . Since and cotangent is strictly decreasing there, the unique parameter value is . Therefore
The tangent line drawn in the preceding figure has the required positive slope.
The cycloid has limiting endpoints and , with its highest point at . The transformation sends to and preserves , so the arch is symmetric about . Its slope decreases from through zero to , giving vertical limiting tangent lines at the cusps and a horizontal tangent line at the top. More explicitly,
so the arch is a concave function throughout its interior. The endpoint cusps are limiting points, excluded by the open parameter interval.
Figure 1.
One cycloid arch, its limiting cusps, highest point, and the point with slope square root of three
. Details.
Differentiate the cycloid parametrization:
The half-angle simplification is valid throughout , where . In particular the horizontal coordinate increases strictly along the arch.
The heat equation is linear and homogeneous in : the operator satisfies . Thus the superposition principle applies to its solutions. Spatial translations are also allowed because the coefficients are constant.
Choose in part (b) and multiply by to make the initial amplitude one. Taking the two shifts and then gives
At this reproduces both initial peaks. Each term is an instance of Gaussian initial data for the heat equation, so their sum satisfies the equation. Its extension to negative times is a real smooth solution precisely on the connected interval
At the lower endpoint the peaks narrow without bound and their heights diverge; there is no finite classical continuation there. For positive times each peak spreads and decreases in height while preserving its integral.
For a Gaussian function, the required derivatives are
Substitute these into the reduced ordinary differential equation and compare the constant and quadratic coefficients:
The constant terms give , and this value also satisfies the quadratic terms. Hence
A constant multiple is also a solution by linearity.
Set . The similarity solution uses , whose partial derivatives at fixed or are
Apply the multivariable chain rule to :
Substituting in the heat equation and cancelling the positive common factor gives
The partial derivatives are and , so all stationary points are for integers . Their Hessian matrix is . At even multiples of it is a positive-definite matrix, whereas at odd multiples it has one positive and one negative eigenvalue. Consequently
There are no local maxima. Since both and are nonnegative, these are also global minima. In the requested open plotting window, the stationary points are and ; the local minima at lie on excluded edges.
For a level set , solving for the vertical coordinate gives
For these level sets are closed ovals around each local minimum. At the level sets shrink to the local minima. The level set through the saddle points is
where the two signed branches together describe the same set as . They cross at and reach . The crossing slopes at a saddle point are , as also follows from the local quadratic form . For , the upper and lower level sets remain separate and extend across the plotting window without meeting the horizontal axis.
Figure 1.
Contours of the cosine-plus-quadratic function, with its saddle level and stationary points labelled
. Details.
Differentiate the polar form of a complex number using the product rule and chain rule:
A second differentiation gives
The two contributions to arise separately from differentiating and from differentiating the moving exponential factor.

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