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Geometry Difficulty 6.4 National Olympiad Prove it Singapore

You are given some equilateral triangles and squares, all with side length 11, and asked to form convex nn sided polygons using these pieces. If both types must be used, what are the possible values of nn, assuming that there is sufficient supply of the pieces?

Solution

Thus n12n \le 12. It's easy to construct such polygons with 55-1212 sides.

Figure 1

To complete the proof, we now show that nn cannot be 33 or 44. An interior square is a square with none of its vertices lie on the boundary (of the convex polygon). At a vertex of an interior square, there are either 22 squares and 33 triangles or 44 squares. Thus there are at least 22 squares at every vertex of an interior square. A boundary square is a square that has at least one vertex on the boundary. It is also easy to see that a boundary square must have one side on the boundary. We first show that the convex polygon must have a boundary square. Suppose on the contrary, all the squares are interior. Consider a line LL containing one side of the polygon. Let vv be a vertex belonging to a square so that vv is closest to LL. At vv there are two squares. Since between LL and the line MM containing vv and parallel to LL, there are no vertices belonging to a square, one side of each of the two squares containing vv must lie on MM, i.e., the 22 squares share a common side. Let ww be the last vertex on the 'left' side of vv on the line MM belonging to a square. By applying the same argument, there must be another vertex to the left of ww that belongs to a square, contradicting the choice of ww. Therefore, there are boundary squares. If the boundary of the polygon formed is formed only by the edges of squares, we get a rectangle. This means the boundary is a cycle of squares. Removing these squares either leaves nothing or another rectangle. This means that no triangle is used, a contradiction. Thus on the boundary, there are edges belonging to triangles and squares. When an edge belonging to a triangle meets an edge belonging to a square, they meet at a vertex of the polygon and the angle at the vertex is 150150^\circ. There are at least two such vertices and therefore there are two angles which are 150150^\circ. This means nn cannot be 33 or 44.

1. The possible internal angles are 6060^\circ, 9090^\circ, 120120^\circ, 150150^\circ. Let their respective numbers be a,b,c,da, b, c, d. Then we have
a+b+c+d=n60a+90b+120c+150d=(n2)180 \begin{aligned} a+b+c+d &= n \\ 60a+90b+120c+150d &= (n-2)180 \end{aligned}
Eliminating nn, we obtain
4a+3b+2c+d=12. 4a+3b+2c+d=12.

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