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This is a somewhat long discussion so bear with me. There is a theorem that I have always been curious about from an intuitive standpoint. This is an issue that has been glossed over in most textbooks that I have read. Quoting Wikipedia, The theorem is:

"The gradient of a function at a point is perpendicular to the level set of f at that point."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_set#Level_sets_versus_the_gradient

I understand the Wikipedia article's proof, which is the standard way of looking at things, but I see the proof as somewhat magical. It gives a symbolic reason for why the theorem is true without giving much geometric intuition.

The gradient gives the direction of largest increase so it sort of makes sense that a curve that is perpendicular would be constant. Alas, this seems to be backwards reasoning. Having already noticed that the gradient is the direction of greatest increase, we can deduce that going in a direction perpendicular to it would be the slowest increase. But we can't really reason that this slowest increase is zero nor can we argue that going in a direction perpendicular to a constant direction would give us a direction of greatest increase.

I would also appreciate some connection of this intuition to Lagrange Multipliers which is another somewhat magical theorem for me. I understand it because the algebra works out but what's going on geometrically? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_multipliers

Finally, what does this say intuitively about the generalization where we are looking to: maximize f(x,y) where g(x,y) > c

I have always struggled to find the correct internal model that would encapsulate these ideas.

This is a somewhat long discussion so please bear with me. There is a theorem that I have always been curious about from an intuitive standpoint and that has been glossed over in most textbooks I have read. Quoting Wikipedia, the theorem is:

The gradient of a function at a point is perpendicular to the level set of $f$ at that point.

I understand the Wikipedia article's proof, which is the standard way of looking at things, but I see the proof as somewhat magical. It gives a symbolic reason for why the theorem is true without giving much geometric intuition.

The gradient gives the direction of largest increase so it sort of makes sense that a curve that is perpendicular would be constant. Alas, this seems to be backwards reasoning. Having already noticed that the gradient is the direction of greatest increase, we can deduce that going in a direction perpendicular to it would be the slowest increase. But we can't really reason that this slowest increase is zero nor can we argue that going in a direction perpendicular to a constant direction would give us a direction of greatest increase.

I would also appreciate some connection of this intuition to Lagrange multipliers which is another somewhat magical theorem for me. I understand it because the algebra works out but what's going on geometrically?

Finally, what does this say intuitively about the generalization where we are looking to: maximize $f(x,y)$ where $g(x,y) > c$.

I have always struggled to find the correct internal model that would encapsulate these ideas.