In the Cartesian plane, we have a triangle where whose coordinates are , respectively.
If the coordinate of the orthocenter of the triangle is , find .
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An equation for the plane through A and perpendicular to B C = ( − 2 , 1 , 4 ) is − 2 x + y + 4 z = 1 2 , while an equation for the plane through B and perpendicular to A C = ( 2 , 2 , 2 ) is x + y + z = 9 . As A B × A C = ( 6 , − 1 2 , 6 ) , the vector ( 1 , − 2 , 1 ) is perpendicular to the triangle plane, hence an equation for this plane is x − 2 y + z = 0 . The linear system consisting of the three equations above yields the coordinates of the orthocenter. The (unique) solution is H = ( 5 / 2 , 3 , 7 / 2 ) and then two times the squared distance of the orthocenter from the origin is 5 5 .