The area of triangle with vertices $(1,2,0),(1,0, a)$ and $(0,3,1)$ is $\sqrt{6}$ sq. units, then the values…

The area of triangle with vertices $(1,2,0),(1,0, a)$ and $(0,3,1)$ is $\sqrt{6}$ sq. units, then the values of ' $a$ ' are
  1. -8,1
  2. 2,-4
  3. -2,4
  4. 8,-1

Solution

Refer figure $\mathrm{A}(\Delta \mathrm{ABC})=\frac{1}{2}|\overline{\mathrm{BA}} \times \overline{\mathrm{BC}}|$ Here $\quad \overline{B A}=2 \hat{j}-a \hat{k}$ $\overline{\mathrm{BC}}=-\hat{\mathrm{i}}+3 \hat{\mathrm{j}}+(1-a) \hat{\mathrm{k}}$ Now $\overline{\mathrm{BA}} \times \overline{\mathrm{BC}}=\left|\begin{array}{ccc}\hat{\mathrm{i}} & \hat{\mathrm{j}} & \hat{\mathrm{k}} \\ 0 & 2 & -\mathrm{a} \\ -1 & 3 & 1-\mathrm{a}\end{array}\right|$ $\begin{aligned} & =\hat{i}(2-2 a+3 a)-\hat{j}(-a)+\hat{k}(2)=(a+2) \hat{i}+(a) \hat{j}+2 \hat{k} \\ \therefore & |\overline{B A} \times \overline{B C}|=\sqrt{(a+2)^2+(a)^2+(2)^2} \end{aligned}$ From given data, we write $\begin{aligned} & \sqrt{6}=\frac{1}{2} \sqrt{2 a^2+4 a+8} \\ & \therefore 4(6)=2 a^2+4 a+8 \Rightarrow a^2+2 a-8 \\ & \Rightarrow(a+4)(a-2)=0 \\ & \Rightarrow a=-4,2 \end{aligned}$

Asked in: MHT CET 2021 (22 Sep Shift 2)

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