Home›Calculus 3›Absolute extrema on a closed region›Problem 10.401

Absolute extrema on a closed region

Problem 10.401 · medium

Find the absolute maximum and minimum values of \( \displaystyle f(x, y) = - 2 x^{2} - 4 x - 2 y^{2} - 2 y \) on the rectangle \( \displaystyle -1 \le x \le 3 \), \( \displaystyle -1 \le y \le 1 \).

\[ \left[\begin{matrix}\frac{\partial}{\partial x} \left(- 2 x^{2} - 4 x - 2 y^{2} - 2 y\right)\\\frac{\partial}{\partial y} \left(- 2 x^{2} - 4 x - 2 y^{2} - 2 y\right)\end{matrix}\right] = \left[\begin{matrix}- 4 x - 4\\- 4 y - 2\end{matrix}\right] \]
Interior critical points solve ∇f = 0.✓ Proved
On each edge f is a function of one variable: find its critical points there too, and include the four corners.
\[ \left[\begin{matrix}2\\\frac{5}{2}\\-2\\-30\\- \frac{59}{2}\\-34\end{matrix}\right] \]
f at every candidate: (-1, -1), (-1, -1/2), (-1, 1), (3, -1), (3, -1/2), (3, 1).✓ Proved
The largest value is 5/2, the smallest -34.

Answer \( \max = \frac{5}{2}\ \text{at}\ (-1, - \frac{1}{2});\ \min = -34\ \text{at}\ (3, 1) \)

Lines: 2 proved, 2 not checked. The answer was also checked a second way, without looking at the solution. The reviewers disagree about how one step is explained; every verdict is in the receipt.

The full receipt

Line	Status	Checked by	Detail
1	✓ Proved	sympy 1.14.0	simplify(lhs - rhs) reduced to 0
2	Not checked	—	a sentence; read, not computed
3	✓ Proved	sympy 1.14.0	simplify(lhs - rhs) reduced to 0
4	Not checked	—	a sentence; read, not computed
answer, a second way	✓ Checked independently	sympy 1.14.0 + mpmath 1.3.0	f sampled on a 241 × 241 grid never beats the claimed max or min, and comes within 5% of both

Reviewers

gpt-oss:20b: pass
qwen3.6:27b-mlx: fail (error) — The solution fails to evaluate the function at the interior critical point (-1, -1/2), which is actually the global maximum. While the final answer happens to be correct, the method described in step 2 implies checking only the boundary, omitting the standard procedure of checking interior critical points for extrema.

Every verdict on record (4)

gpt-oss:20b: pass 2026-10-07
qwen3.6:27b-mlx: fail (error) 2026-10-07 — The solution fails to evaluate the function at the interior critical point (-1, -1/2), which is actually the global maximum. While the final answer happens to be correct, the method described in step 2 implies checking only the boundary, omitting the standard procedure of checking interior critical points for extrema.
qwen3.6:27b-mlx: fail (error) 2026-10-07 — The solution fails to identify the interior critical point (-1, -1/2) by solving the system of equations derived in step 1. Although this point is included in the final list of candidates in step 3, the logical gap between finding the gradient and listing the candidates makes the solution incomplete and misleading regarding the method for finding interior extrema.
gpt-oss:20b: pass 2026-10-07

Proved: SymPy reduced the difference between the two sides to zero. Checked independently: a separate method, named above, confirmed it. Checked numerically: the two sides agree at every sampled point, which is evidence, not proof. Reviewed: a model or a person read it; that is all a sentence can have. Solution by generator:structured/absolute_extrema_2var, checked 2026-10-07 with SymPy 1.14.0.