Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 4.4 AIME Find the answer United States

Regular polygons with 55, 66, 77, and 88 sides are inscribed in the same circle. No two of the polygons share a vertex, and no three of their sides intersect at a common point. At how many points inside the circle do two of their sides intersect?

Pick one

Solution

Answer (E): Consider a regular mm-gon and a regular nn-gon, with mnm \leq n, inscribed in the same circle with no shared vertices. If AA and BB are adjacent vertices of the mm-gon, then minor arc ABAB contains at least one vertex of the nn-gon. Thus side ABAB intersects exactly two sides of the nn-gon inside the circle, and the two polygons intersect in exactly 2m2m points. It follows that the pentagon intersects the hexagon, the heptagon (the regular polygon with 77 sides), and the octagon in 1010 points each; the hexagon intersects the heptagon and the octagon in 1212 points each; and the heptagon intersects the octagon in 1414 points. The total number of points of intersection is 310+212+14=683 \cdot 10 + 2 \cdot 12 + 14 = 68.

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