Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 4.3 AIME Prove it United States

Problem:
A triangle has altitudes of length 1515, 2121, and 3535. Find its area.

Solution

Solution:
Answer: 2453245 \sqrt{3}

If AA is the area of the triangle, the sides are 2A15\frac{2A}{15}, 2A21\frac{2A}{21}, and 2A35\frac{2A}{35}. So the triangle is similar to a 115\frac{1}{15}, 121\frac{1}{21}, 135\frac{1}{35} triangle, which is similar to a 3,5,73, 5, 7 triangle. Let the sides be 3k3k, 5k5k, and 7k7k. Then the angle between the sides of length 3k3k and 7k7k is 120120^{\circ}, so the area is 1534k2\frac{15 \sqrt{3}}{4} k^2. But the area can also be calculated as (3k)(35)2=105k2\frac{(3k)(35)}{2} = \frac{105k}{2}. Setting these values equal, k=1433k = \frac{14 \sqrt{3}}{3} and the area is 2453245 \sqrt{3}.

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