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4 votes
2x+y = 3z = 0
4x + 2y - 6z = 0
x-y+z=0

User Jasonhao
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4.5k points

1 Answer

4 votes

Explanation:

what do we need to do with that ?

I assume we need to solve this (that means to get hopefully unique numbers for x, y, z or indicating that there are no or several or infinite solutions).

I also assume that the first equation is actually

2x + y - 3z = 0

you could transform it into

2x + y = 3z

but then this is NOT equal 0. if it were 0, then this would give us immediately

3z = 0

z = 0

that would be great, because then we could use the rest of the equations to simply solve for x and y.

so, let's do both cases, and you need to pick the approach for the equations that you actually have.

first case :

2x + y - 3z = 0

4x + 2y - 6z = 0

x - y + z = 0

when we look only at the first 2 equations, what do we see ?

we see that equation 2 is nothing else than equation 1 multiplied by 2.

that means that they are both the same equation giving us the same information.

we are left with only 2 different equations with 3 variables.

similarly to one equation with 2 variables this gives us infinitely many possible solutions.

because when we simply add the first and the third equation, we get

2x + y - 3z = 0

x - y + z = 0

-------------------------

3x 0 - 2z = 0

3x = 2z

x = 2z/3

this has infinitely many solutions, as for any value of z we can think of we get another fitting value of x.

second case :

2x + y = 3z = 0

4x + 2y - 6z = 0

x - y + z = 0

therefore, z = 0, and we get for the rest

2x + y = 0

4x + 2y = 0

x - y = 0

now the fact that equation 1 and 2 are the same did not bother us, as we have 2 different equations (either equation 1 or equation 2 and equation 3) with 2 variables.

let's add the first and the third equation :

2x + y = 0

x - y = 0

-----------------

3x 0 = 0

3x = 0

x = 0

x - y = 0

x = y

0 = y

so, the only solution here is

x = 0, y = 0, z = 0

User Antwann
by
4.3k points