Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2001 iii Paper 56 1 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
The th coordinate plane has equation , hence covector . The line-plane incidence in Plücker coordinates formula reduces toThus the th column of the upper-index Plücker coordinates contains the intersection point's homogeneous coordinates, up to projective scaling. Its th entry vanishes as required. If that column is zero, both defining points have coordinate zero and the entire line is contained in the coordinate plane; there is no distinguished intersection point. Reading rows instead changes only the irrelevant overall sign.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2001 iii Paper 56 1 Solution 2026-10-14
Work in three-dimensional projective space, with four homogeneous coordinates indexed . Let and be independent representatives of two points. The Plücker coordinates of their line areThis antisymmetric matrix has rank two and is defined only up to a nonzero scalar. Replacing the pair by another basis of the same two-dimensional subspace multiplies by the determinant of that basis change. Its six independent entries satisfy , since the exterior product vanishes.
To describe the same line as an intersection of planes, choose a volume orientation with and define the dual Plücker coordinates byThe independent components pair asConversely, with the matching volume convention. The lower-index form annihilates both defining points: . Its columns span the pencil of planes containing their line. This dualization uses the volume form, not a Euclidean metric for raising and lowering indices. Two-index point and plane representations are dual in projective dimension three; in higher dimensions the corresponding dual exterior form has a different degree.
For a general plane covector , contract the upper-index form:This is a linear combination of , so it is on the line, and by antisymmetry, so it is on the plane. Provided the resulting vector is nonzero, its homogeneous coordinates give the unique intersection, including intersections at infinity. If , the whole line lies in the plane and the zero result correctly indicates that there is no unique intersection. These are the line-plane incidence in Plücker coordinates operations used in the subparts.