Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2001 / ib / Paper 3 / 1A / b / Solution

Expand using the bilinearity and symmetry of the real inner product:Addition proves the parallelogram law,For the maximum norm on ${\mathbb{R}}^2$, take $x=(1,0)$ and $y=(0,1)$. All four vectors $x,y,x+y,x-y$ have maximum norm one. The left side of the parallelogram law is then $2$, whereas the right side is $4$. The maximum norm cannot come from an inner product.