Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.7 AIME, harder Find the answer United States

Three identical square sheets of paper each with side length 66 are stacked on top of each other. The middle sheet is rotated clockwise 3030^\circ about its center and the top sheet is rotated clockwise 6060^\circ about its center, resulting in the 24-sided polygon shown in the figure below. The area of this polygon can be expressed in the form abca - b\sqrt{c}, where aa, bb, and cc are positive integers, and cc is not divisible by the square of any prime. What is a+b+ca + b + c?

Figure 1

A number or a short expression. Spacing and $ signs are ignored.

Solutions — 2

Solution 1

Let OO be the center of the polygon, and label 11 points as shown in the figure. Let a=AB=BCa = AB = BC.

Figure 2

Triangle BCKBCK is a 3030-6060-9090^\circ triangle, so BK=2aBK = 2a and CK=KG=a3CK = KG = a\sqrt{3}. Then AG=3a+a3=6AG = 3a + a\sqrt{3} = 6, so a=33a = 3 - \sqrt{3}. The area of the 24-sided polygon can be computed as 1212 times the area of kite OBCDOBCD. The longer diagonal of this kite is OCOC, half of a diagonal of the square, so OC=32OC = 3\sqrt{2}. The shorter diagonal of the kite is BDBD, the hypotenuse of isosceles right triangle BCDBCD with leg a=33a = 3 - \sqrt{3}. The area of a kite is half the product of the lengths of its diagonals, so the area of the 24-sided polygon is
121232(33)2=108363. 12 \cdot \frac{1}{2} \cdot 3\sqrt{2} \cdot (3 - \sqrt{3}) \sqrt{2} = 108 - 36\sqrt{3}.
Therefore a+b+c=108+36+3=147a + b + c = 108 + 36 + 3 = 147.

Solution 2

Label the points as in the first solution, where it was shown that a=AB=BC=33a = AB = BC = 3 - \sqrt{3}. The area of the 24-sided polygon can be found by adding to the area of square AGHIAGHI the areas of 8 triangles congruent to BCK\triangle BCK and then subtracting the areas of 4 triangles congruent to DJK\triangle DJK. The area of the square is 3636. The area of BCK\triangle BCK is
a232=(33)232=639. \frac{a^2 \sqrt{3}}{2} = \frac{(3 - \sqrt{3})^2 \sqrt{3}}{2} = 6\sqrt{3} - 9.
To find the area of DJK\triangle DJK, note that it is an isosceles triangle with vertex angle 120120^\circ and with base JK=62a3=1263JK = 6 - 2a\sqrt{3} = 12 - 6\sqrt{3}. The length of the altitude to the base is then
126323=233. \frac{12 - 6\sqrt{3}}{2\sqrt{3}} = 2\sqrt{3} - 3.
Thus the area of DJK\triangle DJK is
12(1263)(233)=21336. \frac{1}{2} \cdot (12 - 6\sqrt{3}) \cdot (2\sqrt{3} - 3) = 21\sqrt{3} - 36.
Finally, the area of the polygon is
36+8(639)4(21336)=108363. 36 + 8(6\sqrt{3} - 9) - 4(21\sqrt{3} - 36) = 108 - 36\sqrt{3}.
Therefore a+b+c=147a + b + c = 147, as above.

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