All the diagonals of the lateral faces of an n-sided prism are colored in yellow and blue colors, so that single-colored diagonals do not have common points. Prove that the sum of the squares of lengths of all yellow diagonals is equal to the sum of the squares of lengths of the blue ones. (Oleg Kryzhanovsky.)
Solution
Fig. 50 According to the condition, single-colored diagonals don't have common points. That's why without loss of generality let's consider that the following diagonals are colored in blue: B1A2,B2A3,…,Bn−1An,BnA1, the others are colored in yellow. As B1A2=h+A1A2, so (B1A2)2=(h)2+(A1A2)2+2⋅h⋅A1A2. Similarly, (B2A3)2=(h)2+(A2A3)2+2⋅h⋅A2A3,…,(Bn−1An)2=(h)2+(An−1An)2+2⋅h⋅An−1An. Let's sum up our equalities:
B1A22+⋯+BnA12=(B1A2)2+⋯+(BnA1)2==n(h)2+(A1A2)2+⋯+(AnA1)2+2⋅h⋅(A1A2+⋯+AnA1)=nh2+A1A22+⋯+AnA12 If you make similar calculations for yellow diagonals, then you'll get the same expression. What was to be demonstrated.
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