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The planar planar isoperimetric inequality iswith equality precisely for a disc. Let the positively oriented boundary be parametrized by arclength as , . Translate its mean to zero. Then , and Green's theorem gives .
The periodic Wirtinger inequality says that for a real absolutely continuous -periodic function of mean zero and square-integrable derivative,with equality exactly for . Apply it to both coordinates and use Cauchy-Schwarz inequality:If equality holds, the Wirtinger equalities give . The arclength condition forces and , so the boundary is a circle. A circle attains equality, making the constant optimal.
The inequality and equality characterization persist for finitely many corners. A rectifiable piecewise smooth simple closed curve has a Lipschitz arclength parametrization, with almost everywhere. Green's theorem and the absolutely continuous version of Wirtinger's inequality used above still apply. More generally one may approximate a rectifiable Jordan curve by smooth curves while preserving the limiting length and area. If the allowed isolated singularities give infinite length, the inequality is trivially satisfied in the extended sense.