Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.2 AIME, harder Prove it China

Randomly select three vertices from the six vertices of a regular hexagon with side length 11. Then the probability that two of the three vertices are at a distance of 3\sqrt{3} is ______.

Solution

We will show that “two of the three vertices selected are at a distance of 3\sqrt{3}” is a certain event. The regular hexagon with edge length 11 is denoted by A1A2A3A4A5A6A_1A_2A_3A_4A_5A_6. If there exist two adjacent vertices taken out of the three vertices selected, it may be set as A1,A2A_1, A_2. Note that A1A3=A1A5=A2A4=A2A6=3A_1A_3 = A_1A_5 = A_2A_4 = A_2A_6 = \sqrt{3}, so the third vertex must be at a distance of 3\sqrt{3} from one of the vertices A1,A2A_1, A_2. If any two of the three vertices selected are not adjacent to each other, it can only be A1,A3,A5A_1, A_3, A_5 or A2,A4,A6A_2, A_4, A_6. At this point, there are clearly two vertices with a distance of 3\sqrt{3}.

Therefore, the desired probability is 11. \square

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