Past exam of the year 1 of the computer science course of the University of Oxford / 2022 / Discrete mathematics, continuous mathematics, and probability / Continuous mathematics / 4 / c / Solution

The map $u\mapsto u^2$ is strictly increasing on $[0,\infty )$: for $u,v\ge 0$, $u\le v$ if and only if $u^2\le v^2$. Therefore a point has the smallest $f$-value if and only if it has the smallest $f^2$-value, and the same applies to $g$. By minimizers under strictly increasing transformations, both asserted argmin equalities hold, including when the argmin sets are empty. The differentiability assumptions are unnecessary for this order argument.