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Geometry Difficulty 6.0 National Olympiad Find the answer Italy

Problem:

Consider the plane tiled with equilateral triangles, and let F0F_{0} be any one of them. A sequence of ever larger figures is constructed as follows: F1F_{1} is the polygon obtained by adding to F0F_{0} the frame formed by all the triangles of the tessellation that touch F0F_{0} (along a side or at a vertex), F2F_{2} is the polygon obtained by adding to F1F_{1} the frame formed by the triangles that touch F1F_{1}, and the subsequent ones are constructed analogously up to F10F_{10}. How many triangles of the tessellation does this last polygon consist of?

Pick one

Solution

Solution:

The answer is (B). For n1n \geq 1 the figure FnF_{n} is a hexagon having three long sides and three short sides, alternating with each other. Each of the long ones is made up of n+1n+1 sides of triangles, while each of the short ones is made up of nn sides of triangles. Letting xnx_{n} be the number of triangles of the tessellation making up FnF_{n}, we compute the analogous number xn+1x_{n+1} by counting the triangles of the frame that is added to FnF_{n} to obtain Fn+1F_{n+1}. This count gives xn+1xnx_{n+1}-x_{n}. We can build the frame in three stages: in the first we add one triangle for each of the sides of the triangles that make up the sides of the hexagon FnF_{n}, thus altogether 3(2n+1)3(2 n+1) triangles; in the second stage we add the triangles that must be inserted between those of the first stage, nn on each long side and n1n-1 on each short side, thus altogether 3(2n1)3(2 n-1); finally, in the third stage we add two triangles for each vertex of FnF_{n}, that is 12 triangles. The total is
xn+1xn=3(2n+1)+3(2n1)+12=12n+12cioeˋxn+1xn=12(n+1). x_{n+1}-x_{n}=3(2 n+1)+3(2 n-1)+12=12 n+12 \quad \text{cioè} \quad x_{n+1}-x_{n}=12(n+1)\text{.}
Let us now write x1=1+12x_{1}=1+12 (the result of an easy direct count) and the previous formula for n=1,,9n=1, \ldots, 9 (that is x2x1=122,x10x9=1210x_{2}-x_{1}=12 \cdot 2, \ldots x_{10}-x_{9}=12 \cdot 10 ), sum everything term by term and simplify the left-hand side. What remains is that x10=1+12+122+123++1210x_{10}=1+12+12 \cdot 2+12 \cdot 3+\cdots+12 \cdot 10. Hence
x10=1+12(1+2+3++10)=1+1210112=661. x_{10}=1+12(1+2+3+\cdots+10)=1+12 \cdot \frac{10 \cdot 11}{2}=661 .

Second Solution

The figure FnF_{n} is an equilateral triangle of side 3n+13 n+1 from which 3 equilateral triangles of side nn resting on the vertices have been removed. Hence FnF_{n} is made up of (3n+1)23n2=6n2+6n+1(3 n+1)^{2}-3 n^{2}=6 n^{2}+6 n+1 small triangles of side 1 .

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement translated into English from it; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.