Let be on a connected domain and away from its zero set, with wherever . If negative and zero points coexist, an interior Euclidean ball in touches its zero set. On that Euclidean ball , so the Hopf boundary point lemma forces a nonzero derivative at an interior maximum, contrary to . Thus is identically zero or strictly negative. Mere Lipschitz continuity does not suffice: on has both negative and zero regions.
Articles by others on the same topic
There are currently no matching articles.