Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.2 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:

a. Prove that there are 20122012 points on the unit circle such that the distance between any two of them is rational.

b. Does there exist an infinite set of points on the unit circle such that the distance between any two of them is rational?

Solution

Solution:

The answer to part (b) is yes.
For brevity, we use the notation of complex numbers. For any integers xx and yy, not both zero, let z=x+yiz = x + y i and
P(z)=z2zˉ2 P(z) = \frac{z^{2}}{\bar{z}^{2}}
Clearly, P(z)=1|P(z)| = 1 so P(z)P(z) is a point on the unit circle. We claim that for any z1=x1+y1z_{1} = x_{1} + y_{1} and z2=x2+y2z_{2} = x_{2} + y_{2}, the distance between P(z1)P(z_{1}) and P(z2)P(z_{2}) is rational. We compute:
P(z1)P(z2)2=(P(z1)P(z2))(P(z1)P(z2))=(z12zˉ12z22zˉ22)(zˉ12z12zˉ22z22)=z12zˉ22zˉ12z22+2zˉ12z22z12zˉ22=(z1zˉ2zˉ1z2zˉ1z2z1zˉ2)2 \begin{aligned} \left|P(z_{1}) - P(z_{2})\right|^{2} & = \left(P(z_{1}) - P(z_{2})\right)\left(\overline{P(z_{1})} - \overline{P(z_{2})}\right) \\ & = \left(\frac{z_{1}^{2}}{\bar{z}_{1}^{2}} - \frac{z_{2}^{2}}{\bar{z}_{2}^{2}}\right)\left(\frac{\bar{z}_{1}^{2}}{z_{1}^{2}} - \frac{\bar{z}_{2}^{2}}{z_{2}^{2}}\right) \\ & = -\frac{z_{1}^{2} \bar{z}_{2}^{2}}{\bar{z}_{1}^{2} z_{2}^{2}} + 2 - \frac{\bar{z}_{1}^{2} z_{2}^{2}}{z_{1}^{2} \bar{z}_{2}^{2}} \\ & = -\left(\frac{z_{1} \bar{z}_{2}}{\bar{z}_{1} z_{2}} - \frac{\bar{z}_{1} z_{2}}{z_{1} \bar{z}_{2}}\right)^{2} \end{aligned}
The expression in parentheses is purely imaginary (being the difference of a complex number and its conjugate). Its imaginary part is rational since the components of z1z_{1} and z2z_{2} are rational. We conclude that P(z1)P(z2)\left|P(z_{1}) - P(z_{2})\right| is rational.
To finish the proof, it suffices to show that P(z)P(z) takes on infinitely many values. It is not hard to check that the choices z=1+i,1+2i,1+3i,z = 1 + i, 1 + 2i, 1 + 3i, \ldots all give distinct values of P(z)P(z).

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