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More than the result (that I already have printed in my book), I'd be interested in the procedure to switch from a non parametric to a parametric equation of a plane in the Euclidean space. Here is the exercise:

Find parametric equations describing the plane $x_1 - 2x_2 +3x_3 = 6.$

Thanks.

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Since a surface is 'intrinsically' 2D, you're going to need 2 variables in any parametrization of the plane --- you can also notice that using a single variable gives equations for curves, and we want to 'smear' the curves in another direction to get a surface, hence the second variable coming into play.

The easiest way to parametrize is if you can write one variable in terms of the other two; in our case, we can write $x_1 = 6+2x_2 -3x_3$. Therefore, using the parameters $s$ and $t$ for our parametrization, we can write $x_1 = 6+2s -3t,$ $x_2 = s,$ $x_3 = t.$

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    Many thanks @john-engbers but I still don't get it. How can I get to the following result: $x$1 = 6 - 6t - 6s, x2 = -3t, x3 = 2s ?2012-05-29