that the totality of all circles in the plane is a 3-parameter family.

This is also
expressed by saying that a circle in the plane has three degrees of freedom.
There are various subfamilies of this collection. For example, all circles in the
plane which pass through a given point, say (a,b), form a subfamily. Any such
circle has an equation of the form (xh)2 + (y k)2 = (a h)2 + (bk)2, i.e.,
x2 + y2 2hx2ky + 2ah + 2bk a2 b2 = 0. Note that now there are only
two parameters, viz., h and k. So the family of all circles passing through a
given point is a 2-parameter family. Similarly, the family of all circles which
touch a given line L is a 2-parameter family. A still smaller family is the family
of all circles which touch a given line at a given point. This is a 1-parameter
family because every member of it is determined by just one parameter, viz.,
its radius. (Actually, there are two circles of a given radius which touch a
given line at a given point. They lie on opposite sides of the line. But still we
consider the family of all circles touching a given line at a given point as a 1parameter family. This poses no serious diculties. Or we can take the
algebraic distance of the centre from the line (which is positive on one side of
the line and negative on the other) as a parameter instead of the radius.) We
already encountered 1-parameter families of curves in problems of nding
loci of moving points. Continuing this line of thinking, a 0-parameter family of
circles is a family which contains just one or possibly several but always a
nite number of circles. In the problem above, the family of circles which
touch the line y = x at a point which is 42 units away from the origin is a 0parameter family. It has four members. The problem essentially asks you to
identify this 0-parameter family and then nally to choose one of the four
members of it, using the piece of data that the point (10,2) lies in the
interior of the circle. Let us compare the two solutions above in the light of
this terminology. The rst solution consists of identifying the desired circle C
from a 3-parameter family of circles. In other words, the journey was from a
3-parameter family to a 0-parameter family. In the second solution, on the
other hand, we rst used the given conditions to show that C must belong to
a 1-parameter family of circles, viz., the family of all circles which touch the
line y = x at either (4,4) or at (4,4). The advantage which a 0-parameter
family of curves has over a kparameter family (for k > 0) is that the former is
nite while the latter is innite. When a search has been narrowed down to a
nite number of cases, it can be completed by examining each of those cases
one by one (as we did above to nd out which of the four circles had the point
(10,2) in its interior). This is not possible for a k-parameter family if k > 0.
Therefore our goal is to start from a suitable k-parameter family and rst
reduce the search to a 0-parameter family. The topic of parametrised families
of plane curves will come up again in Comment No. 17 of Chapter 19, where
we shall see that such families represent certain dierential equations.
Comment No. 12: In view of what is said above, it might appear that in
problems where we

Chapter 9 - Coordinate Geometry 307

have to nd a curve of a given type which answers a given description, we
should start with a k-parameter family, where k is as small as possible, the
best choice being a 1-parameter family. But this is not a hard and fast rule.
Sometimes the calculations involved with a single parameter become messy
if attempted in a routine manner and the job can be done better with two (or
more) parameters chosen suitably. As an illustration, suppose that the
straight lines 3x + 4y = 5 and 4x3y = 15 intersect at the point A. Points B
and C are chosen on these two lines such that AB = AC. We are asked to
determine the possible equations of the line BC passing through the point
(1,2). (JEE 1990) Call the lines as L1 and L2 respectively. Solving their
equations simultaneously, A comes out as (3,1). One way to solve the
problem is to take parametric equations of the lines L1 and L2. As (3,1) is a
point on L1 with equation 3x+4y = 5, every point on L1 is of the form x =
34s,y = 1+3s for some value of the parameter s. In particular, this is the
case for B. So we take B as (34s,1+3s), where the value of s is to be
found. Similarly, by taking parametric equations of L2 we may suppose C =
(3+3t,1+4t), where again, t is an unknown to be determined. The equation
of the line BC can now be expressed in terms of these two parameters, viz., s
and t. However, to determine the values of these two parameters, it is hardly
necessary to write the equation of BC explicitly. All we need is two equations
in these two unknowns. One of these is provided by the condition that AB =
AC which gives 25s2 = 25t2, i.e., s = t. One more equation is given by the
condition that the line BC passes through the point (1,2). Equating two
expressions for the slope of the line BC we get 3s3 24s = 4t3 2+3t,
which, upon simplication, becomes 25st6s17t = 0 (17) Putting t = s in
this gives 25s2 = 23s, whence s = 0 or s = 23 25. The solution s = 0 has to
be discarded since that would make B and C coincide with A and hence the
line BC will not be dened. The case s = 23 25 gives the slope of BC (which
we already know to be 3s3 24s ) as 1 7. Hence the equation of BC in this