At , the surface cannot cross the boundary , because it lies inside . Consequently the two surfaces are tangent at . Apply a proper Euclidean motion of Euclidean three-space so that , their common tangent plane is , and the prescribed inward unit normal is . Locally write
with the region on the side . Then
Thus has a local minimum at zero and its Hessian matrix is positive semidefinite. The fundamental forms of a graph surface at a horizontal tangent plane give
Taking the trace of the positive-semidefinite difference proves the mean-curvature comparison at tangential contact:
There is no analogous conclusion for . In the same local coordinates take
Then , so the second graph lies on the inward side of the first, while the Gaussian curvature of a graph surface gives
Hence the mean-curvature inequality holds but
Using smooth bump functions, these local graph patches can be completed away from to a compact region with connected smooth boundary and a closed interior surface without changing their germs at . This realizes the counterexample under the global hypotheses.
Put . An upward-pointing Gauss map is
For tangent vectors , differentiation of
gives
The Weingarten map is self-adjoint and , so the right side is . Hence
Alternatively differentiating gives
Therefore
This is the fundamental forms of a graph surface.