Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Oxford / 2021 / Prelims / Mathematics IV / 3

For a regular parametrized surface that covers its image once, up to sets of zero area, its surface area isThe integrand is the area element of a surface, the area of the small parallelogram spanned by the two tangent vectors. A parametrization that covers a region more than once counts that multiplicity; the geometric surface area requires a single covering or a division into nonoverlapping patches.

Interpolate the radius and height byA parametrized surface for the conical frustum isThe strict positivity of $a,c$ gives $\rho (t)>0$. Since $d>b$, the height identifies $t$ uniquely; the angle then identifies a point of each circle uniquely modulo $2\pi$. Hence this covers the lateral surface of revolution once. If $a=c$, it is the lateral surface of a circular cylinder.

For the parametrized surface in i,These tangent vectors are orthogonal, and their Euclidean norms are $\sqrt{(c-a{)}^2+(d-b{)}^2}$ and $\rho$, respectively. Their cross product therefore has Euclidean norm $\rho \sqrt{(c-a{)}^2+(d-b{)}^2}$. Integration givesThis is the lateral surface area of a conical frustum, with no end disks included.

The endpoint radii are $5$ and $13$, but substituting those two numbers in the finite conical frustum formula is invalid. A rotation about the $z$-axis preserves the horizontal angle between the endpoint position vectors; here $(3,4)$ and $(12,5)$ are not parallel. The radius along the generating segment is not linear in height.

Parametrize the actual segment byIts rotated circle at height $1+6t$ has radiusThus the rotated image is the surface of revolution $\mathbf{R}(t,\theta )=(\rho (t)\cos \theta ,\rho (t)\sin \theta ,1+6t)$. Applying the conical frustum formula to infinitesimal pieces of this radial profile, or directly using the cross product as in ii, gives the surface area of a surface of revolutionTo evaluate it explicitly, put $u=82t+31$. Then $9676t^2+7316t+1861=(59u^2+19602)/41$. DefineThe chain rule gives $G^{\prime }(u)=2\sqrt{59u^2+19602}$, so the answer isThe positive logarithm arguments make this a real-valued expression. Rotating the segment's endpoints independently into one vertical plane before joining them would instead create a different surface, with surface area $180\pi \simeq 565.4867$.

Let $\mathbf{r}(u,v)$ parametrize $S$. Then $A\mathbf{r}$ parametrizes its image, with tangent vectors $A{\mathbf{r}}_u$ and $A{\mathbf{r}}_v$. An orthogonal matrix preserves dot products, so the Lagrange identity for the cross product gives, for any $\mathbf{p},\mathbf{q}$,The area element of a surface is therefore the same pointwise before and after applying $A$. Integrating provesThis includes orthogonal transformations with determinant $-1$: reversal of orientation does not affect the Euclidean norm in the surface area formula.

Let $B=A^{T}A$. It is a symmetric matrix, and ${\mathbf{v}}^{T}B\mathbf{v}=\Vert A\mathbf{v}{\Vert }^2\ge 0$. By the spectral theorem for real symmetric matrices, choose an orthonormal basis ${\mathbf{v}}_1,{\mathbf{v}}_2,{\mathbf{v}}_3$ of eigenvectors of $B$, with nonnegative eigenvalues ${\lambda }_1,{\lambda }_2,{\lambda }_3$.

For each $i\ne j$, take the unit parallelogram parametrized by $s{\mathbf{v}}_i+t{\mathbf{v}}_j$, $0\le s,t\le 1$. Its surface area is $1$. Moreover,The image parallelogram consequently has area $\sqrt{{\lambda }_i{\lambda }_j}$. By the assumption this equals $1$ for all three pairs, givingNo eigenvalue can be zero. Dividing the equations and using positivity yields ${\lambda }_1={\lambda }_2={\lambda }_3=1$. HenceThus testing all surfaces is stronger than necessary: the three unit parallelograms in these principal directions already determine the result. This is the three-dimensional characterization of linear surface-area isometries.