Maths Olympiad Prep

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Combinatorics Difficulty 4.7 AIME Find the answer United States

Problem:

Estimate AA, the number of unordered triples of integers (a,b,c)(a, b, c) so that there exists a nondegenerate triangle with side lengths aa, bb, and cc fitting inside a 100×100100 \times 100 square. An estimate of EE earns max(0,20AE/1000)\max (0,\lfloor 20-|A-E| / 1000\rfloor) points.

A number or a short expression. Fractions can be typed as 3/2, and spacing doesn't matter.

Solution

Solution:

Let's first count the number of such triangles with perimeter equal to pp. By Stars and Bars, there are (p2)p22\binom{p}{2} \approx \frac{p^{2}}{2} ordered triples of positive integers that sum to pp. Additionally, note that only about a quarter of them satisfy the triangle inequality, we have only p28\frac{p^{2}}{8} possible triples. Dividing by 3!3! gives us approximately p248\frac{p^{2}}{48} nondegenerate triangles with perimeter pp. Summing this from p=1p=1 to nn gives us approximately n3144\frac{n^{3}}{144} triangles with perimeter at most nn.

Now, note that there are two "extremes" for our triangles. One extreme is a triangle that is very close to a line. In that case, we have that the maximum perimeter is 2002283200 \sqrt{2} \approx 283. In the other extreme, we have a triangle that is very close to an equilateral triangle, in which case we have the maximum perimeter is 3100cos153113 \cdot \frac{100}{\cos 15^{\circ}} \approx 311. Thus, as a compromise between these extremes, we can plug in n=300n=300 to get a value of 3003144=187500\frac{300^{3}}{144}=187500, which would have earned 13 points.

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