Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /663 of 740

, 2016

Geometry Difficulty 5.6 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:

Meghal is playing a game with 2016 rounds 1,2,,20161,2, \cdots, 2016. In round nn, two rectangular double-sided mirrors are arranged such that they share a common edge and the angle between the faces is 2πn+2\frac{2 \pi}{n+2}. Meghal shoots a laser at these mirrors and her score for the round is the number of points on the two mirrors at which the laser beam touches a mirror. What is the maximum possible score Meghal could have after she finishes the game?

Solution

Solution:

Let points O,A1,A2O, A_{1}, A_{2} lie in a plane such that A1OA2=2πn+2\angle A_{1} O A_{2}=\frac{2 \pi}{n+2}. We represent the mirrors as line segments extending between OO and A1A_{1}, and OO and A2A_{2}. Also let points A3,A4,,An+2A_{3}, A_{4}, \cdots, A_{n+2} lie in the plane such that Ai+1A_{i+1} is the reflection of Ai1A_{i-1} over OAiO A_{i}.

If Meghal shoots a laser along line ll such that the first point of contact with a mirror is along OA2O A_{2}, the next point of contact, if it exists, is the point on OA1O A_{1} that is a reflection of the intersection of ll with OA3O A_{3}. If we continue this logic, we find that the maximum score for round nn is equal to the maximum number of intersection points between ll and OAiO A_{i} for some ii. We do casework on whether nn is even or odd. If nn is even, there are at most n+22\frac{n+2}{2} spokes such that ll can hit OAiO A_{i}, and if nn is odd, there are at most n+32\frac{n+3}{2} such spokes. Then we must sum 2+2+3+3++1009+1009=1009101011=10190882+2+3+3+\cdots+1009+1009=1009 \cdot 1010-1-1=1019088.

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