Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 4.7 AIME Prove it United States

Problem:
A line in the Cartesian plane is called stable if it passes through at least two points (x,y)(x, y) such that xx and yy are rational numbers. Prove or disprove: every point lies on some stable line.

Solution

Solution:
The assertion is false: we will show that the point (2,3)(\sqrt{2}, \sqrt{3}) does not lie on a stable line.

Note that the slope of any stable line must be a rational number. Now assume for contradiction that (a,b)(a, b) lies on a stable line through (2,3)(\sqrt{2}, \sqrt{3}), where aa and bb are both rational. Then 2a3b=m\frac{\sqrt{2}-a}{\sqrt{3}-b}=m for some rational number mm, which leads us to
mba=m32. m b - a = m \sqrt{3} - \sqrt{2}.
Since 2\sqrt{2} is not rational, we must have m=0m=0. Then, squaring both sides gives
(mba)2=(3m2+2)2m6. (m b - a)^2 = \left(3 m^2 + 2\right) - 2 m \sqrt{6}.
Since m0m \neq 0 this implies 6\sqrt{6} is irrational, which is a contradiction.

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