Past exam of the mathematical methods I course of the University of Oxford 2021 resit 7 Solution 2026-10-25
An exact differential is for a scalar potential function , so and . Equality is necessary, and is sufficient on a simply connected space when these partial derivatives are continuous.
Here, after multiplying the ordinary differential equation by ,On either half-plane or , integrate with respect to :Comparison of with gives , hence up to a constant. The solution is therefore the family of level setsLocally these define differentiable graphs wherever , by the implicit function theorem. When , on this domain, so a finite derivative cannot satisfy there; such points are vertical tangents of the implicit curves, rather than additional classical graph solutions.