Alright, I've got another question:
 Let }A\text{ be a }5\times 4\text{ matrix with real entries and let }\textbf{b }\text{ be the second column of }A.\text{ It is }\\\text{given that }\textbf{Ax = 0}\text{ has the general solution }\\\textbf{x}=\mu(1,2,2,1)^T,\mu\in\mathbb{R} \\\text{Find the following explicity}\\\text{a) one explicit solution to }x_p\text{to }\textbf{Ax}_p=\textbf{b};\\\text{b) the general solution to }\textbf{Ax = b}\\\text{c) Give a geometric interpretation of the general solution}\\\\\\\text{2) Consider the surface }S\text{ defined by }z=x^2+2xy^2+y^4,\text{ and the point }P=(2,1,9)\text{ on it.}\\\text{a) Find the equation of the tangent plane to }S \text{ at }P.\\\text{b) Find the equation of the normal }S\text{ at }P.) 
For the second question, in the answers they implicitly differentiate the equation wrt x and y and then the normal is the vector: 

. I just wanna know why they always use -1 for the third element of this vector, and is there an alternate way of doing this question? And can we pick any number instead of -1?
EDIT: Sorry for being cold and not replying to your previous post IG, I was heading to uni when you replied, and I had work after. And then I've been busy with exams prep D: I'm still working on those q's, but I'm finishing off other subjects first