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HMMO, 2020

Algebra Difficulty 5.9 AIME, harder Find the answer United States

Problem:

For some positive real α\alpha, the set SS of positive real numbers xx with {x}>αx\{x\} > \alpha x consists of the union of several intervals, with total length 20.220.2. The value of α\alpha can be expressed as ab\frac{a}{b}, where a,ba, b are relatively prime positive integers. Compute 100a+b100 a + b. (Here, {x}=x−⌊x⌋\{x\} = x - \lfloor x \rfloor is the fractional part of xx.)

Proposed by: Daniel Zhu

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

Solution

Solution:

If we note that x={x}+⌊x⌋x = \{x\} + \lfloor x \rfloor, then we can rewrite our given inequality as {x}>α1−α⌊x⌋\{x\} > \frac{\alpha}{1-\alpha} \lfloor x \rfloor. However, since {x}<1\{x\} < 1, we know that we must have α1−α⌊x⌋<{x}<1\frac{\alpha}{1-\alpha} \lfloor x \rfloor < \{x\} < 1, so each interval is of the form (n+α1−αn,n+1)\left(n + \frac{\alpha}{1-\alpha} n, n+1\right) for some integer nn, which has length 1−(n+1)α1−α\frac{1 - (n+1) \alpha}{1-\alpha}. If we let kk be the smallest integer such that 1−(k+1)α1−α<0\frac{1 - (k+1) \alpha}{1-\alpha} < 0, then the total length of all our intervals is the sum
∑n=0k−11−(n+1)α1−α=k−k(k+1)2α1−α \sum_{n=0}^{k-1} \frac{1 - (n+1) \alpha}{1-\alpha} = \frac{k - \frac{k(k+1)}{2} \alpha}{1-\alpha}
If we set this to 20.220.2, we can solve for α\alpha to get
α=k−20.2k(k+1)2−20.2. \alpha = \frac{k - 20.2}{\frac{k(k+1)}{2} - 20.2}.
Since we defined kk to be the smallest integer such that 1−(k+1)α<01 - (k+1) \alpha < 0, we know that kk is the largest integer such that kα<1k \alpha < 1. If we plug in our value for α\alpha, we get that this is equivalent to
k2−20.2kk(k+1)2−20.2<1⟹k<40.4 \frac{k^2 - 20.2 k}{\frac{k(k+1)}{2} - 20.2} < 1 \Longrightarrow k < 40.4
Thus, we have k=40k = 40, and plugging this in for our formula for α\alpha gives us
α=40−20.240⋅412−20.2=331333. \alpha = \frac{40 - 20.2}{\frac{40 \cdot 41}{2} - 20.2} = \frac{33}{1333}.

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