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Using Lagrange Multipliers To Solve A Constrained Max-Min Problem

This document describes using Lagrange multipliers to find the hottest point on the surface of a space probe shaped as an ellipsoid entering Earth's atmosphere. It shows the steps of writing the temperature and constraint functions, taking their gradients to set up equations to solve, solving the equations, and evaluating the temperature function at the solutions to determine the hottest point is where x=4/3, y=-4/3, z=-4/3 with a temperature of 642.6667.

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14 views2 pages

Using Lagrange Multipliers To Solve A Constrained Max-Min Problem

This document describes using Lagrange multipliers to find the hottest point on the surface of a space probe shaped as an ellipsoid entering Earth's atmosphere. It shows the steps of writing the temperature and constraint functions, taking their gradients to set up equations to solve, solving the equations, and evaluating the temperature function at the solutions to determine the hottest point is where x=4/3, y=-4/3, z=-4/3 with a temperature of 642.6667.

Uploaded by

bemamdangiu
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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23:09 16/11/2023 Using Lagrange Multipliers to Solve a Constrained Max-Min Problem

Using Lagrange Multipliers to Solve a


Constrained Max-Min Problem
Contents

Space probe

Space probe

A space probe in the shape of the ellipsoid

enters the earth's atmosphere and its surface begins to heat. After 1 hour
the temperature at the point (x,y,z) on the probe's surface is

Find the hottest point on the probe's surface.

Step1 Write the constraint as g = 0. The function g is

syms x y z
g = 4*x^2+y^2+4*z^2-16

g =

4*x^2 + y^2 + 4*z^2 - 16

Step 2 The extreme values of T on the probe's surface occur where the
gradients of T and g are parallel. We set up the equations

T = 8*x^2+4*y*z-16*z+600

T =

8*x^2 - 16*z + 4*y*z + 600

gradg = jacobian(g,[x,y,z])
gradT = jacobian(T,[x,y,z])

gradg =

[ 8*x, 2*y, 8*z]

gradT =

[ 16*x, 4*z, 4*y - 16]

https://www3.nd.edu/~nancy/Math20550/Demos/lagrange/lagrange_multipliers.html 1/2
23:09 16/11/2023 Using Lagrange Multipliers to Solve a Constrained Max-Min Problem

We need to solve the equations

Step 3 We solve the equations.

syms lam
[lsol,xsol, ysol, zsol] = solve(gradT(1)-lam*gradg(1),gradT(2)-lam*gradg(2),gradT(3)-lam*gradg(3),g);
[xsol,ysol,zsol,lsol]

ans =

[ 0, 4, 0, 0]
[ 4/3, -4/3, -4/3, 2]
[ -4/3, -4/3, -4/3, 2]
[ 0, -2, 3^(1/2), -3^(1/2)]
[ 0, -2, -3^(1/2), 3^(1/2)]

Step 4 Plug the resulting values for (x,y,z) into T and look to see where
the maximum occurs. First we turn T into a function

Tfun = inline(vectorize(T))
double([xsol,ysol,zsol, Tfun(xsol,ysol,zsol)])

Tfun =

Inline function:
Tfun(x,y,z) = 8.*x.^2 - 16.*z + 4.*y.*z + 600

ans =

0 4.0000 0 600.0000
1.3333 -1.3333 -1.3333 642.6667
-1.3333 -1.3333 -1.3333 642.6667
0 -2.0000 1.7321 558.4308
0 -2.0000 -1.7321 641.5692

The hottest points on the probe's surface are

Published with MATLAB® 7.9

https://www3.nd.edu/~nancy/Math20550/Demos/lagrange/lagrange_multipliers.html 2/2

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