Q.A line is parallel to -plane if all the points on the line have equal ________.
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Start your 14-day free trial to unlock the full solution →A line parallel to the -plane has a constant -coordinate — the line never moves up or down, so the missing word is -coordinate.
Why this matters — the geometry of coordinate planes
The -plane is the horizontal plane in 3D space. Every point on it has . But more generally, any plane parallel to the -plane is a horizontal plane at some fixed height — say , where is a constant.
Now think about a line. If it’s parallel to the -plane, it must lie entirely within some horizontal plane. That means every point on the line shares the same -value. The line can wander freely in the and directions, but it never rises or falls.
A common mistake is to think “parallel to the -plane” means the line is parallel to the -axis or -axis. That’s wrong — a line parallel to the -plane can point in any direction in the horizontal plane (e.g., along , or even along a curve if it were a curve, but here it’s a straight line). The only restriction is that its is constant.
Step-by-step reasoning
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Recall the equation of the -plane.
The -plane is defined by . Any plane parallel to it has equation , where is a constant.
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What does “parallel” mean for a line and a plane?
A line is parallel to a plane if it never intersects the plane (unless it lies in it) and is not perpendicular to it. For a horizontal plane, this means the line must stay at a fixed height — its direction vector has no -component. …
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