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Geometry Difficulty 5.7 AIME, harder Prove it Ireland

A paper rhombus ABCDABCD, with side lengths 44 and ABC=60\angle ABC = 60^\circ, is folded so that BB coincides with the mid-point HH of ADAD and creased. Prove that the length of the crease is 1221\frac{1}{2}\sqrt{21}.

Solution

Let EFEF be the crease such that EE is on ABAB and FF on BCBC. Join HH to CC, FF and EE.

Figure 1

The crease EFEF lies along the perpendicular bisector of HBHB and the triangles EHF\triangle EHF and EBF\triangle EBF are congruent. If we let x=AEx = |AE| and y=CFy = |CF|, then EH=EB=4x|EH| = |EB| = 4-x and HF=BF=4y|HF| = |BF| = 4-y.

In triangle EHAEHA we have AH=2|AH| = 2 and HAE=120\angle HAE = 120^\circ, thus the cosine rule reads
(4x)2=22+x24xcos(120)=x2+2x+4 (4 - x)^2 = 2^2 + x^2 - 4x \cos(120^\circ) = x^2 + 2x + 4
and so we have 10x=1210x = 12, i.e. x=6/5x = 6/5, thus EB=4x=14/5|EB| = 4 - x = 14/5.

In triangle HDCHDC we have HD=2|HD| = 2, DC=4|DC| = 4 and HDC=60\angle HDC = 60^\circ, and the cosine rule gives
HC2=4+1616cos(60)=12. |HC|^2 = 4 + 16 - 16 \cos(60^\circ) = 12.
In particular, HC2+HD2=CD2|HC|^2 + |HD|^2 = |CD|^2 and so FCH=CHD=90\angle FCH = \angle CHD = 90^\circ. Therefore we have HF2=HC2+CF2|HF|^2 = |HC|^2 + |CF|^2, i.e. (4y)2=12+y2(4 - y)^2 = 12 + y^2 and so 4=8y4 = 8y, that is y=1/2y = 1/2. This implies BF=4y=7/2|BF| = 4 - y = 7/2.

The cosine rule for triangle BEFBEF now gives
EF2=BF2+EB22BFEBcos(60)=(72)2+(145)227214512=2149100,and soEF=71021 \begin{aligned} |EF|^2 &= |BF|^2 + |EB|^2 - 2|BF| \cdot |EB| \cos(60^\circ) \\ &= \left(\frac{7}{2}\right)^2 + \left(\frac{14}{5}\right)^2 - 2 \cdot \frac{7}{2} \cdot \frac{14}{5} \cdot \frac{1}{2} = \frac{21 \cdot 49}{100}, \quad \text{and so} \\ |EF| &= \frac{7}{10}\sqrt{21} \end{aligned}

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