Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /16 of 22

Combinatorics Difficulty 5.2 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:
A sheet of graph paper has perpendicular grid lines spaced 1 unit apart. On the paper, you draw a polygon all of whose edges lie along the grid lines. Determine all possible perimeters for this polygon.

Solution

Solution:
The possible perimeters are all even numbers greater than 22. To show that these are all possible, note that a 1×(n1)1 \times (n-1) rectangle has perimeter 1+(n1)+1+(n1)=2n1 + (n-1) + 1 + (n-1) = 2n, so there is a shape with perimeter 2n2n for every n2n \geq 2. To show that no shape can have odd perimeter, imagine walking along the boundary of the shape starting from some point and coming back to the same point. For every step to the right, you must also take a step to the left at some point, and for every step up, you must also take a step down at some point to end up back where you started. Thus, the total number of steps must be even.

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