[Math] equation of plane containing the line of intersection between two planes and a point

geometryplane-geometry

I am trying to solve the following question:

What is the equation of the plane containing the line of intersection between the planes $x+y+z=1$ and $y+z=0$, as well as the point $P = (2,1,0)$?

The way I tried to do it is to set arbitrary values to find two other points on the plane and then use the normal of a polygon algorithm to calculate the normal to the plane.

However, this doesn't seem to yield the correct answer ($x-y-z=1$). Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Best Answer

Let us go for the intersection line first. We have the system of equations $$ x + y + z = 1 \\ y + z = 0 $$ which can be simplified to $$ x = 1 \\ y + z = 0 $$ which gives the line $$ (1, y, -y) = (1,0,0) + (0,1,-1) y $$ We can extend that line to a plane by $$ (1,0,0) + (0,1,-1) s + (a, b, c) t $$ where $s, t \in \mathbb{R}$ and $(a,b,c)$ is a vector we need to choose such that the plane contains $A$: $$ (2,1,0) = (1,0,0) + (0,1,-1) s + (a, b, c) t = (1 + at, s + bt, -s + ct) $$ We are now dealing with two unknown parameters and three unknown components, but have only three equations. So we try to require $s=0$ and $t=1$ and look if there is a solution: $$ (2,1,0) = (1,0,0) + (a, b, c) \iff (1,1,0) = (a,b,c) $$ This gives $$ (1,0,0) + (0,1,-1)s + (1,1,0) t = (1+t,s+t,-s) \quad (s, t \in \mathbb{R}) $$ as equation for the plane.

The situation

Alternate representation of the solution plane:

We can bring this into a single equation in three coordinates, by finding the normal form $$ n \cdot x = d $$ where $n$ is a unit normal vector of the plane and $d$ is the (signed) distance to the origin.

Maybe there is an easier way to do this, but I do not see it right now.

We can calculate a normal vector from the vector product of the plane spanning vectors: $$ (0,1,-1) \times (1,1,0) = (1, -1, -1) $$ so a unit normal vector is $n = (1,-1,-1)/\sqrt{3}$. The distance of the plane to the origin is $$ d^2 = q = \lVert (1+t, s+t, -s) \rVert^2 = (1+t)^2 + (s+t)^2 + s^2 \\ $$ We look where the gradient vanishes: $$ 0 = \partial q / \partial s = 2(s+t) + 2s = 4s + 2t \\ 0 = \partial q / \partial t = 2(1+t) + 2(s+t) = 2s + 4t + 2 $$ This gives the system $$ 4s + 2t = 0 \\ 2s + 4t + 2 = 0 $$ or $$ 2s + t = 0 \\ 2s + 4t + 2 = 0 $$ or $$ 2s + t = 0 \\ 3t + 2 = 0 $$ so $$ s = 1/3 \\ t = -2/3 $$ so we get $$ q = (1 - 2/3)^2 + (1/3 - 2/3)^2 + (1/3)^2 = 1/9 + 1/9 + 1/9 = 3/9 = 1/3 $$ and $d = 1 / \sqrt{3}$. This gives $$ \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}} (1,-1,-1) \cdot (x,y,z) = \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}} $$ or simply $$ (1,-1,-1) \cdot (x,y,z) = 1 \iff \\ x - y - z = 1 $$

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