Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /7 of 24

Algebra Difficulty 6.0 AIME, harder Prove it Italy

Problem:

Let a<b<c<d<ea < b < c < d < e be real numbers. All possible pairwise sums of these 5 numbers are computed. Among these 10 sums, the three smallest are 32,36,3732, 36, 37, while the two largest are 4848 and 5151. Determine all possible values that ee can assume.

Solution

Solution:

It is first of all evident that the two smallest sums, 3232 and 3636, are respectively a+ba+b and a+ca+c. In the same way, the two largest sums, 4848 and 5151, are respectively c+ec+e and d+ed+e. Thus a+b=32a+b=32, a+c=36a+c=36; subtracting the first equation from the second one obtains
cb=4. c-b=4.
In the same way, from d+e=51d+e=51, c+e=48c+e=48 one obtains
dc=3 d-c=3
and finally, subtracting (1) from (2), one obtains
db=7. d-b=7.
It remains to understand which sum corresponds to the value 3737. A priori, there are two possibilities: 37=a+d37=a+d or 37=b+c37=b+c. If it were 37=a+d37=a+d, then by (3) one would have 37=a+d=(a+b)+(db)=32+7=3937=a+d=(a+b)+(d-b)=32+7=39, which is absurd. Therefore only the possibility 37=b+c37=b+c remains. At this point it is easy to compute the values of a,ba, b and cc. Indeed 2a=(a+b)+(a+c)(b+c)=32+3637=312a=(a+b)+(a+c)-(b+c)=32+36-37=31, from which a=15.5a=15.5, b=32a=16.5b=32-a=16.5 and c=37b=20.5c=37-b=20.5. Once the value of cc is known, we can also compute e=48c=27.5e=48-c=27.5, from which d=23.5d=23.5. With these values of a,b,c,d,ea, b, c, d, e it indeed turns out that the three smallest sums are 32,3632, 36 and 3737 and the two largest sums are 4848 and 5151, so the only possible value for ee is 27.527.5.

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement translated into English from it; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.