Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.5 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:

Let HH be a regular hexagon of side length xx. Call a hexagon in the same plane a "distortion" of HH if and only if it can be obtained from HH by translating each vertex of HH by a distance strictly less than 11. Determine the smallest value of xx for which every distortion of HH is necessarily convex.

Solution

Figure 1
Let H=A1A2A3A4A5A6H = A_{1}A_{2}A_{3}A_{4}A_{5}A_{6} be the hexagon, and for all 1i61 \leq i \leq 6, let points AiA_{i}' be considered such that AiAi<1A_{i}A_{i}' < 1. Let H=A1A2A3A4A5A6H' = A_{1}'A_{2}'A_{3}'A_{4}'A_{5}'A_{6}', and consider all indices modulo 66. For any point PP in the plane, let D(P)D(P) denote the unit disk {QPQ<1}\{ Q \mid PQ < 1 \} centered at PP; it follows that AiD(Ai)A_{i}' \in D(A_{i}).
Let XX and XX' be points on line A1A6A_{1}A_{6}, and let YY and YY' be points on line A3A4A_{3}A_{4} such that A1X=A1X=A3Y=A3Y=1A_{1}X = A_{1}X' = A_{3}Y = A_{3}Y' = 1 and XX and XX' lie on opposite sides of A1A_{1} and YY and YY' lie on opposite sides of A3A_{3}. If XX' and YY' lie on segments A1A6A_{1}A_{6} and A3A4A_{3}A_{4}, respectively, then segment A1A3A_{1}'A_{3}' lies between the lines XYXY and XYX'Y'. Note that x2\frac{x}{2} is the distance from A2A_{2} to A1A3A_{1}A_{3}.
Figure 2
If x22\frac{x}{2} \geq 2, then C(A2)C(A_{2}) cannot intersect line XYXY, since the distance from XYXY to A1A3A_{1}A_{3} is 11 and the distance from XYXY to A2A_{2} is at least 11. Therefore, A1A3A_{1}'A_{3}' separates A2A_{2}' from the other 33 vertices of the hexagon. By analogous reasoning applied to the other vertices, we may conclude that HH' is convex.
If x2<2\frac{x}{2} < 2, then C(A2)C(A_{2}) intersects XYXY, so by choosing A1=XA_{1}' = X and A3=YA_{3}' = Y, we see that we may choose A2A_{2}' on the opposite side of XYXY, in which case HH' will be concave. Hence the answer is 44, as desired.

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