Past exam of the mathematical methods I course of the University of Oxford 2018 1 a Solution 2026-10-25
Put . The hyperbolic tangent identity gives . Taking a compatible branch of the complex logarithm givesAs an identity for a single-valued inverse hyperbolic tangent, this requires consistent branch cuts; one cannot choose unrelated logarithm branches on the two sides. Near the branch with value zero is fixed by . The full inverse relation also allows , , and are singular points.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2004 iii Paper 74 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Take downslope and normal to the plane. To leading order in the lubrication approximation, Newtonian gravity gives the hydrostatic pressure . The downslope Stokes equation is therefore . Imposing the no-slip boundary condition at and the stress-free boundary condition at givesHere is the kinematic viscosity; is the downslope velocity. Applying mass conservation to this lubrication gravity-current flux,For typical thickness and length , the transverse velocity is by incompressibility. Both convective terms are then , while transverse viscous acceleration is . Thus the inertia criterion for an inclined viscous film is , in addition to . With evolution time the same condition controls unsteady inertia. If a faster time is independently imposed, also require . Estimating from the velocity profile gives the two requested limits:
At long times, and the ratio of hydrostatic-gradient forcing to downslope Newtonian gravity in the bulk is . Put ; the bulk conservation law is . The finite-volume gravity-driven thin-film current scales as , . More explicitly, writing , , givesThe constant of integration is zero for the zero-flux dry tail. ConsequentlyThe reduced bulk solution is zero outside this interval. Its thin nose region is resolved below. Integrating to impose the conserved area,The bulk front height is , with . Differentiation of the front law givesEquivalently, this is the Rankine-Hugoniot condition for the bulk shock wave, whose speed is flux divided by height.
In moving coordinate , the full thin-film equation becomes . A nose thickness and slope give axial scale . Since , the explicit time derivative is smaller than translation by that ratio. The travelling front of a gravity-driven thin film is therefore quasisteady. Integrate once with dry-tip flux zero to obtain , orWith , separation of variables and the convention at giveThe nose approaches exponentially far behind its tip, then falls to zero with a vertical tangent in this small-slope model. The requested sketch shows this monotone profile:
Expanding the inverse hyperbolic tangent, , so . Its slope has magnitude near the tip. The small-slope breakdown at an inclined-current nose occurs at , which givesFinally, surface tension produces a pressure-gradient scale , whereas downslope Newtonian gravity gives . Their ratio is . Thus surface tension changes the principal nose length whenThis is a bulk-nose crossover; capillarity and contact-line physics can already affect a smaller region very close to the dry tip even when the bulk nose is Newtonian gravity dominated.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 ia Paper 2 8C c Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 1 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge 2009 Paper 1 11 a ii Solution Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
For the real inverse hyperbolic tangent, take and . Its logarithmic expression givesThe same derivative holds on a differentiable complex branch away from its singularities.
Put and . Traverse the rectangle with positive orientation of a contour, taking . Part (i) shows that the only enclosed poles of areThey are simple poles becauseThe residue formula for a quotient at a simple denominator zero givesTheir imaginary terms cancel and their residues sum to . Thus Cauchy's residue theorem gives
The choice of numerator makes the horizontal sides useful. The hyperbolic sine satisfies , so . Consequently the lower and upper contour integrals, with their actual orientations, add toIt remains to justify discarding both vertical sides. On either side , , the reverse triangle inequality and part (b)(ii) implyThis lower bound is positive for sufficiently large . Also and each vertical side has length . The estimation lemma bounds the absolute value of the sum of the vertical contributions byThe real improper integral converges absolutely, since its integrand is continuous on the real axis and decays like at infinity. Combining all four sides and taking givesThereforeAn independent real-variable check uses the hyperbolic tangent substitution : the integral becomes . Its antiderivative uses the inverse hyperbolic tangent, giving . As , this tends to , agreeing with and checking the factor of two.

