About: Steiner's calculus problem
Steiner's problem, asked and answered by , is the problem of finding the maximum of the function It is named after Jakob Steiner. The maximum is at , where e denotes the base of the natural logarithm. One can determine that by solving the equivalent problem of maximizing Applying the first derivative test, the derivative of is so is positive for and negative for , which implies that – and therefore – is increasing for and decreasing for Thus, is the unique global maximum of
