[Math] distance between intersection of two planes and origin

lagrange multiplierplane-geometry

I have a following problem. I want to find the smallest possible distance between the line intersection of two planes given by:

\begin{equation}
x + 2y−2z = 3 \text{ and } 2x + y + 2z = 6
\end{equation}

I already found line of intersection which is given by:
\begin{equation}
\begin{aligned}
x &= 3 + 2t \\
y &= − 2t \\
z &= − t
\end{aligned}
\end{equation}

But I could not figure out how to use this to find the minimum point so I thought of using Lagrangian method which would look like following:

\begin{equation}
dist = \sqrt{(x-0)^2 + (y-0)^2 + (z-0)^ 2}
\end{equation}

subject to constraints given by the equations of the two planes but the problems seems too unwieldy and difficult. if anyone can help I would really appreciate it.

Best Answer

You can make the equations more tractable by using the square of the distance as the objective function instead. However, there’s also a fairly straightforward solution method based on geometric considerations.

The minimal distance to the line is measured along a direction perpendicular to the line, so the nearest point on the line to the origin is the intersection of the line with its perpendicular plane through the origin. You have $(2,-2,-1)^T$ as a direction vector for the line, so an equation of this plane is $2x-2y-z=0$. You will end up with a simple linear equation in $t$ to solve.

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