Consider the four points: (-1, -4,1) (-1,1,2), (1,-1,0), (2,1,-1). Draw the shap
ID: 2832086 • Letter: C
Question
Consider the four points: (-1, -4,1) (-1,1,2), (1,-1,0), (2,1,-1). Draw the shape that has these four points as vertices. Find the surface area of this shape. Reflect the point (-1, -4,1) across the plane defined by the points (1, -1,0), (2,1, -1), (-1,1,2). What is the surface area of the new shape? Consider a room ten units long in the x, y, and z directions. Specifically, the walls of the room are the four planes x = 0,x = 10,y = 0, and y = 10, and the floor and ceiling are z = 0 and z = 10, respectively. A flat triangular mirror is mounted in one of the corners of the ceiling. The corners of the mirror are at locations (10,9,10), (10,10,9), and (9,10,10). You are sitting at the location (5,0,0) playing with your new green laser pointer. If you aim your laser pointer directly at the corner of the room with coordinates (10,10,10), determine the coordinates where the beam will hit the walls, or floor, of the room. (Hint: an incoming ray of light, and the surface normal where the ray hits the surface, form a plane. The reflected ray is in the same plane. Also, the angle between the incoming ray and the normal is the same as the angle between the normal and the reflected ray.)Explanation / Answer
2).I took the starting point and where I am aiming the laser and made it into a vector to be the laser beam. <5,10,10>, then reduced it by a scale of 5 to have a more workable but still parallel vector <1,2,2>. I then parameterized it to start at (5,0,0).
x(t)=5+t, y(t)=2t, z(t)=2t
Next I found the normal vector to the plane of the mirror <1,1,1>, and used 1 point (9, 10, 10) to find the equation for the plane: x+y+x=29
Plugged my parameter equations in for x,y, and z to find where the laser hits the mirror: (9.8, 9.6, 9.6)
Since I'm told the the normal vector to the mirror and the laser vector form a plane that the redirected beam will stay on, I took the cross product of the two vectors to find the normal of that plane. So <1,1,1> X <1,2,2>, which I found to be equal to: <0,-1,1>.
I know that this plane must exist at the point (9.8, 9.6, 9.6) so I plug all of this in to find the standard equation for a plane. I end up with y=z.
I am also told that the angle between the incoming ray and the normal of the mirror is the same as the outgoing ray and the normal of the mirror.
So cos(theta) = (normal dot laser)/(|n||L|), I work this out to find that theta is: 15.8 degrees.
This is where I'm stuck. I think that I can use that same equation but use the reflected beam: cos(15.8) = (normal dot reflected beam)/(|n||R|) to find it, so I put in <x,y,z> for the reflected beam but this is where I'm stuck. I have two equations: y=z and cos(15.8)=vector stuff but I have 3 unknowns. Can I assume that it will hit at x=0? If I plug that in and y=z in, then I get cos(15.8)=2/sqrt(6), because the y's or z's end up cancelling.