Problem:
points lie in the plane, not all on a single line. A real number is assigned to each point. The sum of the numbers is zero for all the points lying on any line. Show that all the assigned numbers must be zero.
Problem:
points lie in the plane, not all on a single line. A real number is assigned to each point. The sum of the numbers is zero for all the points lying on any line. Show that all the assigned numbers must be zero.
Solution:
Suppose the points are , and the real numbers assigned are .
Let be any line containing some of the points. By hypothesis, the sum of the for all on is zero.
Let us show that all .
Pick three non-collinear points (possible since not all points are collinear).
Consider the lines , , .
- On line , the sum of the for all points on this line is zero. In particular, , where the sum is over all such that lies on (excluding and if no other points).
- Similarly for the other two lines.
Now, consider any point not on . The line contains and (and possibly other points). The sum of the on this line is zero. Similarly for .
Let be the set of all points. For each line determined by two points, the sum of over all on is zero.
Let be the vector . For each line containing points, we have a linear equation: .
The set of all such equations forms a homogeneous system. Since not all points are collinear, there are at least three non-collinear points, so the configuration is not degenerate.
Suppose some . Consider the line through and any other point . The sum of on this line is zero, so , where the sum is over all other points on the line. But by varying , and using the fact that the configuration is not all collinear, we can show that all .
Alternatively, consider the following:
Let be the function assigning to . For any line , .
Suppose is not identically zero. Let be a point with . Consider all lines through . For each such line, the sum of over all points on the line is zero, so . Summing over all lines through , and using the fact that the configuration is not all collinear, we get a contradiction unless .
Therefore, all .