Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 6.4 National Olympiad Prove it United States

Problem:
A wealthy king has his blacksmith fashion him a large cup, whose inside is a cone of height 99 inches and base diameter 66 inches (that is, the opening at the top of the cup is 66 inches in diameter). At one of his many feasts, he orders the mug to be filled to the brim with cranberry juice.
For each positive integer nn, the king stirs his drink vigorously and takes a sip such that the height of fluid left in his cup after the sip goes down by 1n2\frac{1}{n^{2}} inches. Shortly afterwards, while the king is distracted, the court jester adds pure Soylent to the cup until it's once again full. The king takes sips precisely every minute, and his first sip is exactly one minute after the feast begins.
As time progresses, the amount of juice consumed by the king (in cubic inches) approaches a number rr. Find rr.

Solution

Solution:
Answer: 216π3218738π2\frac{216 \pi^{3}-2187 \sqrt{3}}{8 \pi^{2}}

First, we find the total amount of juice consumed. We can simply subtract the amount of juice remaining at infinity from the initial amount of juice in the cup, which of course is simply the volume of the cup; we'll denote this value by VV.

Since volume in the cup varies as the cube of height, the amount of juice remaining in the cup after mm minutes is
Vn=1m(91n29)3=V(n=1m(119n2))3 V \cdot \prod_{n=1}^{m}\left(\frac{9-\frac{1}{n^{2}}}{9}\right)^{3}=V \cdot\left(\prod_{n=1}^{m}\left(1-\frac{1}{9 n^{2}}\right)\right)^{3}
We can now factor the term inside the product to find
V(n=1m(3n+1)(3n1)9n2)3=V((3m+1)!33m(m!)3)3 V\left(\prod_{n=1}^{m} \frac{(3 n+1)(3 n-1)}{9 n^{2}}\right)^{3}=V\left(\frac{(3 m+1)!}{3^{3 m}(m!)^{3}}\right)^{3}
It remains to evaluate the limit of this expression as mm goes to infinity.

However, by Stirling's approximation, we have
limm(3m+1)!33m(m!)3=limm(3n+1e)3n+12π(3n+1)(3ne)3n(2πn)3=limm(3n+1)32πne(3n+13n)3n=332π. \begin{aligned} \lim _{m \rightarrow \infty} \frac{(3 m+1)!}{3^{3 m}(m!)^{3}} & =\lim _{m \rightarrow \infty} \frac{\left(\frac{3 n+1}{e}\right)^{3 n+1} \cdot \sqrt{2 \pi(3 n+1)}}{\left(\frac{3 n}{e}\right)^{3 n} \sqrt{(2 \pi n)^{3}}} \\ & =\lim _{m \rightarrow \infty} \frac{(3 n+1) \sqrt{3}}{2 \pi n e}\left(\frac{3 n+1}{3 n}\right)^{3 n} \\ & =\frac{3 \sqrt{3}}{2 \pi} . \end{aligned}
Therefore the total amount of juice the king consumes is
VV(332π)3=(32π93)(8π38138π3)=216π3218738π2 V-V\left(\frac{3 \sqrt{3}}{2 \pi}\right)^{3}=\left(\frac{3^{2} \cdot \pi \cdot 9}{3}\right)\left(\frac{8 \pi^{3}-81 \sqrt{3}}{8 \pi^{3}}\right)=\frac{216 \pi^{3}-2187 \sqrt{3}}{8 \pi^{2}}

Remark. We present another way to calculate the limit at mm \rightarrow \infty of f(m)=(3m+1)!33m(m!)3f(m)=\frac{(3 m+1)!}{3^{3 m}(m!)^{3}}. We have
f(m+1)=(3m+4)!33m+3(m+1)!3=f(m)(m+23)(m+43)(m+1)2 f(m+1)=\frac{(3 m+4)!}{3^{3 m+3}(m+1)!^{3}}=f(m) \frac{\left(m+\frac{2}{3}\right)\left(m+\frac{4}{3}\right)}{(m+1)^{2}}
whence we can write
f(m)=cΓ(m+23)Γ(m+43)Γ(m+1)2 f(m)=\frac{c \Gamma\left(m+\frac{2}{3}\right) \Gamma\left(m+\frac{4}{3}\right)}{\Gamma(m+1)^{2}}
for some constant cc. We can find cc by equating the expressions at m=0m=0; we have
1=f(0)=cΓ(23)Γ(43)Γ(1)2 1=f(0)=\frac{c \Gamma\left(\frac{2}{3}\right) \Gamma\left(\frac{4}{3}\right)}{\Gamma(1)^{2}}
so that c=Γ(1)2/Γ(23)Γ(43)c=\Gamma(1)^{2} / \Gamma\left(\frac{2}{3}\right) \Gamma\left(\frac{4}{3}\right).
Of course, Γ(1)=0!=1\Gamma(1)=0!=1. We can evaluate the other product as follows:
Γ(23)Γ(43)=13Γ(23)Γ(13)=13πsinπ/3=2π33 \Gamma\left(\frac{2}{3}\right) \Gamma\left(\frac{4}{3}\right)=\frac{1}{3} \Gamma\left(\frac{2}{3}\right) \Gamma\left(\frac{1}{3}\right)=\frac{1}{3} \cdot \frac{\pi}{\sin \pi / 3}=\frac{2 \pi}{3 \sqrt{3}}
Here the first step follows from Γ(n+1)=nΓ(n)\Gamma(n+1)=n \Gamma(n), while the second follows from Euler's reflection formula. Thus c=33/2πc=3 \sqrt{3} / 2 \pi. We can now compute
limmf(m)=limmcΓ(m+23)Γ(m+43)Γ(m+1)2=332πlimmΓ(m+23)Γ(m+43)Γ(m+1)2 \lim _{m \rightarrow \infty} f(m)=\lim _{m \rightarrow \infty} \frac{c \Gamma\left(m+\frac{2}{3}\right) \Gamma\left(m+\frac{4}{3}\right)}{\Gamma(m+1)^{2}}=\frac{3 \sqrt{3}}{2 \pi} \lim _{m \rightarrow \infty} \frac{\Gamma\left(m+\frac{2}{3}\right) \Gamma\left(m+\frac{4}{3}\right)}{\Gamma(m+1)^{2}}

Since limnΓ(n+α)/[Γ(n)nα]=1\lim _{n \rightarrow \infty} \Gamma(n+\alpha) /\left[\Gamma(n) n^{\alpha}\right]=1, this final limit is 11 and f(m)33/2πf(m) \rightarrow 3 \sqrt{3} / 2 \pi as mm \rightarrow \infty.

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