Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 6.1 National Olympiad Prove it Croatia

We call a point PP inside a triangle ABCABC marvelous if exactly 2727 rays can be drawn from it, intersecting the sides of ABCABC such that the triangle is divided into 2727 smaller triangles of equal areas. Determine the total number of marvelous points inside a given triangle ABCABC.
(Naboj)

Solution

Let PP be a marvelous point of ABCABC and let (without loss of generality) the area of ABCABC be 2727. We first note that among the 2727 rays, there must always be PAPA, PBPB and PCPC; otherwise not all the shapes determined by the rays will be triangles.

Each of the 2727 smaller triangles is contained within (or is equal to) one of the triangles PABPAB, PBCPBC, PCAPCA. Let PABPAB contain mm, and PBCPBC contain nn smaller triangles. Numbers mm and nn are elements of {1,2,,25}\{1, 2, \dots, 25\} and they satisfy m+n26m + n \le 26.

We now consider the function which assigns the pair (m,n)(m, n) to each marvelous point of ABCABC. We claim that it is a bijection from the set of marvelous points to the set of pairs of positive integers (m,n)(m, n) which satisfy m+n26m + n \le 26.

We first show that for each pair (m,n)(m, n) we have at most one marvelous point. Let PP be a marvelous point assigned to (m,n)(m, n). This means that PABPAB is divided into mm triangles, while PBCPBC is divided into nn triangles, each of whose areas equal 11. The mm triangles contained within PABPAB have a common altitude whose length equals 2mAB\frac{2m}{|AB|}, so we know that point PP lies on the line pp which is parallel to ABAB, and whose distance to ABAB equals 2mAB\frac{2m}{|AB|}. Analogously, we infer that point PP lies on the line qq which is parallel to BCBC, and whose distance to BCBC equals 2nBC\frac{2n}{|BC|}. Since pp and qq are uniquely determined by mm and nn, the fact that their intersection contains at most one point shows that there is at most one point to which the pair (m,n)(m, n) is assigned.

Figure 1

We now show that each pair (m,n)(m, n) is indeed assigned to a marvelous point. Given mm and nn, consider the point PP defined as the intersection of lines pp and qq, as in the previous paragraph. Drawing rays from point PP, we can divide triangles PABPAB and PBCPBC into mm and nn smaller triangles (of area equal to 11), respectively. Finally, triangle PACPAC has area 27mn27 - m - n, so we can divide it into 27mn27 - m - n triangles of area 11 by drawing rays originating in PP. Thus, we can divide the triangle ABCABC into 2727 smaller triangles of equal areas by drawing rays originating in PP. By definition, this means that PP is a marvelous point to which the pair (m,n)(m, n) is assigned.

We have yet to determine the number of ways in which the pair (m,n)(m, n) can be chosen. For each m{1,2,,25}m \in \{1, 2, \dots, 25\}, we can choose nn in exactly 26m26 - m ways. Therefore, the solution is
m=125(26m)=25262=325. \sum_{m=1}^{25} (26 - m) = \frac{25 \cdot 26}{2} = 325.

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