Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2020 ii Paper 3 25I a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
Suppose lies in the closed ball of radius centred at . By compactness, the continuous function attains its maximum at some . The sphere of radius about is a supporting sphere tangent to at .
Put . For any unit vector , choose a surface curve with and . Since has a local maximum at zero,The scalar is the normal curvature in direction , so every normal curvature is at most with this choice of unit normal. Applying this to principal directions shows that both principal curvatures satisfy . ThereforeThis proves both assertions, including the existence of an elliptic point on every compact regular surface.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2020 ii Paper 4 25I b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
Since , Gauss-Bonnet gives , hence . If , the integral of the continuous nonnegative function is zero, so vanishes everywhere.
That is impossible for a compact regular surface in . Choose maximizing the Euclidean distance from the origin, after translating the origin off the surface if necessary. The sphere centered at the origin through is a supporting sphere. The supporting-sphere curvature bound shows that both principal curvatures at have the same sign and nonzero magnitude, so . Therefore , and . The classification theorem for surfaces now shows that is diffeomorphic to the sphere.
Supporting-sphere curvature bound 2026-09-29
If a compact regular surface lies in a closed Euclidean ball of radius , maximize distance from the ball's centre. At a maximizing point, comparison of the second fundamental form with the tangent supporting sphere makes both principal curvatures have magnitude at least and the same sign. The Gaussian curvature there is therefore at least .