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| Question 360073:   why cant you name a plane using 3 collinear points?
 Found 2 solutions by  Alan3354, Jk22:
 Answer by Alan3354(69443)
      (Show Source): Answer by Jk22(389)
      (Show Source): 
You can put this solution on YOUR website! if 3 point are collinear they describe a line : A,B,C, then AB = a *BC 
 and AC = b*BC
 
 the vector AB is a multiple of the vector BC, hence the dimension of span(AB,BC,AC) is 1 :
 
 p*AB + q*BC + r*AC = pa*BC + q*BC + rb*BC = BC*(pa+rb+q)
 
 a plan would need 2 linearly independent vectors.
 
 
 This is true if working in euclidean geometry. On spherical geometry, 3 points are "collinear" would be translated to "on the same great circle".
 
 In this case lines become great circle, but we cannot take the "disk" as describing a plan, since in were in the embedding space.
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