Section 1 Goals
After completing your work on this section, you should be able to:
- Define what it means for a point \((a,b)\) to be a local minimum or maximum of a function \(f(x,y)\text{.}\)
- Define and find the critical points of a function of two variables
- Recognize minima, maxima, and saddle points on the graph of a function or from a contour diagram
- Classify critical points as minima, maxima, or saddle points using the second derivative test
- Recognize when the second derivative test is inconclusive or cannot be used and use other methods to determine the nature of a critical point