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Straight Line

The document discusses three-dimensional geometry, focusing on the equations of straight lines determined by the intersection of planes. It presents various forms of line equations, including general, symmetrical, and parametric forms, along with corollaries and examples illustrating how to find equations of lines through points, angles between lines, and distances from points to planes. Additionally, it includes exercises for further practice on the topic.

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Amro Mohamed
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7 views8 pages

Straight Line

The document discusses three-dimensional geometry, focusing on the equations of straight lines determined by the intersection of planes. It presents various forms of line equations, including general, symmetrical, and parametric forms, along with corollaries and examples illustrating how to find equations of lines through points, angles between lines, and distances from points to planes. Additionally, it includes exercises for further practice on the topic.

Uploaded by

Amro Mohamed
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Three dimensional Geometry

Straight Line
A line may be determined as intersection of any two planes.

(1) General Equation of a straight line:

Let

Be the equations of any two planes, then theses two equations taken together, give
the equations of the line which is the line of intersection of the planes (1) and (2).

A straight line
Corollary 1: The - axis is the intersection of the plane ( and plane
( , so the equations of the - axis are

Similarly, the equations of the - axis are

and the equations of the - axis are

Math Department (SUST) Page 1


Three dimensional Geometry

(2) Symmetrical Form : The equation of a line passing through a given point
and having direction cosines are

Proof: Let be any point on the line and let


Draw and perpendicular on - axis
Z

Projection of on -axis

or

or

Similarly, O
Y

or
X
Thus

Are the required equations of the line.

Corollary 2: Any point on the line is

Corollary 3: The equations of the line through and having direction


ratios are

Math Department (SUST) Page 2


Three dimensional Geometry

Corollary 4: The equations of the line joining the points and


are

as the direction ratios of the line are

Example 1: Find the equations of the line through and making


angles with the positive direction of axes.

Solution: The direction cosines of the line are

i.e.,

The line passes through

Equations of the line are

or

Example 2: Find the angle between the lines

Solution :

Math Department (SUST) Page 3


Three dimensional Geometry

The direction ratios of the line (1) are . Then the direction cosines of line
(1) are .

The direction ratios of the second line are . Then the direction cosines of
line (2) are .

Let be the angle between (1) and (2) , then

or

0r

Example 3: Find the equation of the line passing through and


perpendicular to the plane .

Solution: Since the line is normal (perpendicular) to the plane,

so its direction ratios are . Therefore, the equations

of the line passing through and to are

Example 4: Find the point where the line joining and cut the plane
.

Solution: The equation of the line joining and are

or

Math Department (SUST) Page 4


Three dimensional Geometry

or
The general coordinates of any point on the line are

So, if this point lies on the plane , then

Or

Hence, the required point is .

Example 5: Find the distance of the point from the plane


measured parallel to the line

Solution:

Equation of the line passing through and parallel to the line (2) is

So any point lies on (3) is

If the point lies on the plane (1) , then

Then the coordinates of the point are

Hence, the distance between and is

Math Department (SUST) Page 5


Three dimensional Geometry

(3) Equation of a Line passing through a point and parallel to a vector :

Let us select a point on the line , so its position vector with

respect to the origin is . The line passing through Z

the point is parallel to the vector as shown in the

figure. Let us choose any random point on the

line and its position vector is .

Since the line segment is parallel to


Line
the vector , therefore for any real
Y
Number

X
But , so . Then,

Therefore, the vector equation of a line passing through a given point and
parallel to a given vector is given by

where is a scalar that is called a parameter. The parameter is allowed to


assume any value, so that any point on the line can be obtained from the this
equation.

Corollary 5 : By letting , and . We


obtain the equation

Math Department (SUST) Page 6


Three dimensional Geometry

which lead to the parametric equations of the line passing through the point
and parallel to the vector :

Note : If we assume that and are all non-zero numbers we can solve each of
the equation in the parametric form of the line for . We obtain the symmetric
equation of the line

Notation: A vector in can be expressed as or

Example 6: Find the vector equation and parametric equations of the line passing
through the point and parallel to the vector .

Solution: The vector equation is given by

or

so we have and

Hence, the vector equation is

The parametric equations are

Math Department (SUST) Page 7


Three dimensional Geometry

Exercise: Find the symmetric and the parametric equations of the line passing
through the point and parallel to

(i) The vector


(ii) The line
(iii) The X-axis.
(iv) The Y-axis
(v) The Z-axis

Math Department (SUST) Page 8

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