Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /3 of 6

Geometry Difficulty 6.0 National olympiad Prove it Estonia

Consider hexagons whose internal angles are all equal.
(i) Prove that for any such hexagon the sum of the lengths of any two neighbouring sides is equal to the sum of the lengths of their opposite sides.
(ii) Does there exist such a hexagon with side lengths 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 in some order?

Solutions — 3

Solution 1

(i) Let the hexagon be ABCDEFABCDEF. It suffices to show that AB+BC=DE+EF|AB| + |BC| = |DE| + |EF|.
Let KK be the intersection point of rays FAFA and CBCB and let LL be the intersection point of rays FEFE and CDCD (Fig. 8). The size of every internal angle of the hexagon is 120120^\circ, whence triangles KABKAB and LDELDE are equilateral. The quadrilateral FKCLFKCL is a parallelogram since its opposite sides are parallel. This implies KC=LF|KC| = |LF| or KB+BC=LE+EF|KB| + |BC| = |LE| + |EF|, which together with KB=AB|KB| = |AB| and LE=DE|LE| = |DE| implies the desired equality AB+BC=DE+EF|AB| + |BC| = |DE| + |EF|.

(ii) Take a parallelogram with side lengths 7 and 5 and internal angles 6060^\circ and 120120^\circ, and cut off equilateral triangles with side lengths 1 and 2 at its acute angles. This gives rise to a hexagon with all internal angles having size 120120^\circ and side lengths 1, 4, 5, 2, 3, 6 (Fig. 9).

Figure 1
Figure 8
Figure 2
Figure 9

Solution 2

(i) Note that the external angles of the hexagon have size 6060^\circ. Any two opposite sides of the hexagon are parallel, as they are separated by exactly three external angles.
Consider a line ss perpendicular to opposite sides CDCD and FAFA of the hexagon ABCDEFABCDEF (Fig. 10). As all other sides form the same angle 3030^\circ with line ss, the lengths of these sides are proportional to the lengths of the projections of the sides to line ss. The sum of the lengths of the projections of sides ABAB and BCBC is equal to the distance between the parallel lines CDCD and FAFA and the same holds also for the opposite sides DEDE and EFEF. Therefore the sum of the lengths of the projections of sides ABAB and BCBC is equal to that of sides DEDE and EFEF, whence the sums of the lengths of the sides are equal as well.

Figure 3
Figure 10

(ii) Figure 11 shows a hexagon in a triangular grid with distance between neighbouring nodes being 1. The side lengths of the hexagon are 1, 4, 5, 2, 3 and 6.

Figure 4
Figure 11

Solution 3

Consider two types of transformations on hexagons that maintain the property that all internal angles are of the same size.
(1) Prolonging two opposite sides by the same quantity xx (Fig. 12); this causes the side lengths to change according to the template
(a,b,c,d,e,f)(a+x,b,c,d+x,e,f). (a, b, c, d, e, f) \longleftrightarrow (a+x, b, c, d+x, e, f).
(2) Prolonging the two neighbouring sides of one particular side by the same quantity xx (Fig. 13); this causes the side lengths to change according to the template
(a,b,c,d,e,f)(a+x,bx,c+x,d,e,f) (a, b, c, d, e, f) \longleftrightarrow (a+x, b-x, c+x, d, e, f)
A straightforward check shows that both transformations maintain the desired property, no matter of in which direction the transformations are applied.

(i) As the internal angles of all regular hexagons are equal, it suffices to show that an arbitrary hexagon with all internal angles equal can be turned into a regular hexagon by a finite sequence of the transformations above.
Indeed, let the side lengths of a given hexagon with all internal angles equal be (a,b,c,d,e,f)(a, b, c, d, e, f). Assume w.l.o.g. that dad \ge a and fcf \ge c. Choose a quantity ss such that smax(a,b,c)s \ge \max(a, b, c); by applying the transformation (1) thrice, we can obtain a hexagon with three consecutive sides having the same length:
(a,b,c,d,e,f)(1)(s,b,c,d,e,f)(1)(s,s,c,d,e,f)(1)(s,s,s,d,e,f). (a, b, c, d, e, f) \xrightarrow{(1)} (s, b, c, d', e, f) \xrightarrow{(1)} (s, s, c, d', e', f) \xrightarrow{(1)} (s, s, s, d', e', f').
By the assumption made above we have dsd' \ge s and fsf' \ge s. W.l.o.g., assume also dfd' \le f'. The transformation
(s,s,s,d,e,f)(2)(s,s,s,s,e,f) (s, s, s, d', e', f') \xrightarrow{(2)} (s, s, s, s, e'', f'')
leads to a hexagon with four consecutive sides of equal length. But this must be regular since all of its internal angles are equal (Fig. 14).

(ii) Such a hexagon can be obtained from a regular hexagon with side length 1 by the following transformations:
(1,1,1,1,1,1)(1)(1,4,1,1,4,1)(1)(1,4,5,1,4,5)(2)(1,4,5,2,3,6). (1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1) \xrightarrow{(1)} (1, 4, 1, 1, 4, 1) \xrightarrow{(1)} (1, 4, 5, 1, 4, 5) \xrightarrow{(2)} (1, 4, 5, 2, 3, 6).

Figure 5
Figure 12
Figure 6
Figure 13
Figure 7
Figure 14

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 and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.