One of the coordinate planes is a tangent plane to the surface $y=x^2 +3z^2$. How to know which coordinate plane is tangent to it

multivariable-calculus

One of the coordinate planes is a tangent plane to the surface $y=x^2 +3z^2$.

How can I know which coordinate plane is tangent to it?

I was thinking of checking if it was tangent to a point on the 3 coordinate planes and see if it was parallel or intersecting.

Best Answer

The surface can be expressed as $y - x^2 - 3z^2 = 0$, and the gradient of $y - x^2 - 3z^2$ will be perpendicular to the surface at $(x,y,z)$. Note that $(-2x,1,-6z)$ is this gradient.

In order for a coordinate hyperplane to be tangent to the surface at $(x,y,z)$, this gradient vector also has to have two entries that are zero. The only way this can happen is if $x = z = 0$, which corresponds to gradient vector $(0,1,0)$. And indeed when $x = z = 0$, one has $y = 0$ and the tangent plane to the surface can be verified through the usual formula to be the coordinate plane $y = 0$.