Maths Olympiad Prep

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HMMO, 2020

Geometry Difficulty 3.6 AMC 10/12 Find the answer United States

Problem:

Compute the maximum number of sides of a polygon that is the cross-section of a regular hexagonal prism.

A number or a short expression. Fractions can be typed as 3/2, and spacing doesn't matter.

Solution

Solution:

Note that since there are 8 faces to a regular hexagonal prism and a cross-section may only intersect a face once, the upper bound for our answer is 8.

Indeed, we can construct a cross-section of the prism with 8 sides. Let ABCDEFA B C D E F and A′B′C′D′E′F′A' B' C' D' E' F' be the two bases of the prism, with AA being directly over A′A'. Choose points PP and QQ on line segments ABA B and BCB C, respectively, and choose points P′P' and Q′Q' on segments D′E′D' E' and E′F′E' F', respectively, such that PQ∥P′Q′P Q \parallel P' Q'. Then, the cross-section of the prism from the plane that goes through P,Q,P′,Q′P, Q, P', Q' forms a polygon with 8 sides.

Figure 1

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.