Let ABCD be a square inside which two segments are drawn that divide the angle at A into three equal angles and the square into two equal triangles and a quadrilateral. What is the ratio between the area of the quadrilateral and that of one of the two triangles?
Pick one
Solution
Solution:
The answer is (E). Let AT and AS be the two segments drawn, with T on side BC, S on side CD; the angle at A is right and we have divided it into three equal angles, so BAT=SAD=30∘. The right triangles ABT and ASD are therefore two halves of an equilateral triangle whose height is the side of the square. Calling l the length of AB, the area of the remaining quadrilateral is thus by difference l2−21l32l=l2(1−31). The area of ABT instead equals 231l2 (half that of the equilateral triangle). Their ratio is 23(1−31)=2(3−1).
Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track
puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.
Source: MathNet,
licensed CC-BY-4.0.
Statement translated into English from it; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.