Maths Olympiad Prep

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, 2025

Geometry Difficulty 5.4 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:

Point PP lies inside square ABCDABCD such that the areas of PAB\triangle PAB, PBC\triangle PBC, PCD\triangle PCD, and PDA\triangle PDA are 11, 22, 33, and 44, in some order. Compute PAPBPCPDPA \cdot PB \cdot PC \cdot PD.

Solution

Solution:

Let h1h_{1}, h2h_{2}, h3h_{3}, and h4h_{4} be the lengths of the altitudes from PP to sides ABAB, BCBC, CDCD, and DADA, respectively. Then, the problem statement implies that {h1,h2,h3,h4}={x,2x,3x,4x}\{h_{1}, h_{2}, h_{3}, h_{4}\} = \{x, 2x, 3x, 4x\} for some xx. Furthermore, the area of the square is 1+2+3+4=101 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10, so we have
h1+h3=10=h2+h4.h_{1} + h_{3} = \sqrt{10} = h_{2} + h_{4}.
Hence either ({h1,h3}={x,4x}(\{h_{1}, h_{3}\} = \{x, 4x\} and {h2,h4}={2x,3x}\{h_{2}, h_{4}\} = \{2x, 3x\}, or ({h2,h4}={x,4x}(\{h_{2}, h_{4}\} = \{x, 4x\} and {h1,h3}={2x,3x}\{h_{1}, h_{3}\} = \{2x, 3x\}. In any case, we get 5x=105x = \sqrt{10} from above, and finish via the Pythagorean theorem:
PAPBPCPD=x2+(2x)2(2x)2+(4x)2(4x)2+(3x)2(3x)2+x2PA \cdot PB \cdot PC \cdot PD = \sqrt{x^{2} + (2x)^{2}} \cdot \sqrt{(2x)^{2} + (4x)^{2}} \cdot \sqrt{(4x)^{2} + (3x)^{2}} \cdot \sqrt{(3x)^{2} + x^{2}}
=5010x4\qquad = 50\sqrt{10}x^{4}
=(5010)(25)2\qquad = (50\sqrt{10}) \cdot \left(\frac{2}{5}\right)^{2}
=810.\qquad = \boxed{8\sqrt{10}}.

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