Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 1 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2024 / Paper 1 / 14

The Pythagorean theorem gives $c^2=a^2+b^2$. Taking a total differential gives $2cdc=2ada+2bdb$, soThe area of the right triangle is $A=ab/2$, so the product rule gives $dA=(bda+adb)/2$ andThe prescribed small changes therefore give $dA/A\approx 0.01-0.02=-0.01$: the area decreases by approximately $1\%$. For comparison, retaining the product of the two finite percentage changes gives $(1.01)(0.98)-1=-0.0102$, an exact decrease of $1.02\%$; the total differential retains only the first-order terms.

Put $q={\phi }^{\prime }(y-\beta z)$. Apply implicit differentiation with respect to $x$ and $y$, using the chain rule:ConsequentlyAt a point where the assumed differentiable function $z(x,y)$ exists, the first equation forces $\alpha -\beta q\ne 0$. Combining the equations therefore givesThe assertion is understood on such differentiable branches of the implicit function; arbitrary parameter choices need not produce one everywhere.

The scaling relation says that $z$ is a homogeneous function of degree $n$. Fix $(x,y)$ and differentiate the identity with respect to the positive parameter $\lambda$. The chain rule givesSetting $\lambda =1$ proves the Euler theorem for homogeneous functions identityDifferentiate once more with respect to $\lambda$, using equality of the mixed partial derivatives for the assumed twice continuously differentiable function:At $\lambda =1$ this is the second-order Euler identity for homogeneous functions:The repeated parameter differentiation accounts for the factor $n(n-1)$, rather than $n^2$.