Home›Calculus 3›Tangent planes›Problem 10.38

Tangent planes

Problem 10.38 · medium

Find the tangent plane to \( \displaystyle z = x y \) at the point \( \displaystyle (1, 2, 2) \).

z = f(a,b) + f_x(a,b)(x − a) + f_y(a,b)(y − b).
\[ \left. \frac{\partial}{\partial x} x y \right|_{\substack{ x=1\\ y=2 }} = 2 \]
f_x at the point.✓ Proved
\[ \left. \frac{\partial}{\partial y} x y \right|_{\substack{ x=1\\ y=2 }} = 1 \]
f_y at the point.✓ Proved
\[ 2 x + y - 2 \]
The plane.

Answer \( z = 2 x + y - 2 \)

Lines: 2 proved, 2 not checked. The answer was also checked a second way, without looking at the solution. The reviewers disagree about how one step is explained; every verdict is in the receipt. How we verify

The full receipt

Line	Status	Checked by	Detail
1	Not checked	—	a sentence; read, not computed
2	✓ Proved	sympy 1.14.0	simplify(lhs - rhs) reduced to 0
3	✓ Proved	sympy 1.14.0	simplify(lhs - rhs) reduced to 0
4	Not checked	—	both sides are the same expression: the line states a value, and the working that produced it is not on the line
answer, a second way	✓ Checked independently	sympy 1.14.0 + mpmath 1.3.0	the gap between surface and plane shrinks quadratically near the point

Reviewers

gpt-oss:20b: pass
qwen3.6:27b-mlx: fail (error) — The solution fails to explicitly calculate or state the value of f(a,b) = 2, which is required by the formula in line 1. Consequently, the derivation of the final equation in line 4 does not logically follow from the previous lines, as the constant term -2 appears without justification.

Every verdict on record (6)

qwen3.6:27b-mlx: fail (error) 2026-09-28 — The solution fails to explicitly calculate or state the value of f(a,b) = 2, which is required by the formula in line 1. Consequently, the derivation of the final equation in line 4 does not logically follow from the previous lines, as the constant term -2 appears without justification.
gpt-oss:20b: pass 2026-09-28
qwen3.6:27b-mlx: fail (error) 2026-09-27 — The solution fails to substitute the partial derivatives and the point coordinates into the tangent plane formula stated in line 1. It jumps directly to the final expression without showing the substitution step, making the logical connection between the formula and the result opaque.
gpt-oss:20b: pass 2026-09-27
qwen3.6:27b-mlx: fail (error) 2026-09-26 — The solution fails to explicitly calculate or state f(a,b) = 2, which is required by the formula in line 1. Line 4 presents the final equation but skips the substitution step, making it unclear how the constant term was derived from the formula.
gpt-oss:20b: pass 2026-09-26

Proved: SymPy reduced the difference between the two sides to zero. Checked independently: a separate method, named above, confirmed it. Checked numerically: the two sides agree at every sampled point, which is evidence, not proof. Reviewed: a model or a person read it; that is all a sentence can have. Solution by generator:structured/tangent_plane, checked 2026-10-13 with SymPy 1.14.0.