Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2016/paper-1/11/d/iii/solution

No finite choice of and gives a line. The coefficient of is fixed at one, so completing the square always gives a circle, a point, or the empty set. A general equation could describe a line when and , but changing the fixed quadratic coefficient is not permitted here. A limiting sequence of increasingly large circles does not make any one of these finite equations a line.

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