2.II.24H
Part II, 2007
(i) What is a minimal surface? Explain why minimal surfaces always have non-positive Gaussian curvature.
(ii) A smooth map between two surfaces in 3-space is said to be conformal if
for all and all , where is a number which depends only on .
Let be a surface without umbilical points. Prove that is a minimal surface if and only if the Gauss map is conformal.
(iii) Show that isothermal coordinates exist around a non-planar point in a minimal surface.