Plücker Coordinates for Lines
4
A line
l
in 3-space spanned by vectors
has Plücker coordinates
p
i,j
:=
x
i
y
j
-
x
j
y
i
.
These identify the line
l
with a point
p
l
in 5-space
satisfying the
quadratic
Plücker equation
= 0.
Conversely, every point in 5-space satisfying this Plücker equation is the Plücker coordinate of a line in 3-space.