Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.7 AIME, harder Prove it New Zealand

Problem:

A rectangular sheet of paper is folded so that one corner lies on top of the corner diagonally opposite. The resulting shape is a pentagon whose area is 20%20\% one-sheet-thick, and 80%80\% two-sheets-thick. Determine the ratio of the two sides of the original sheet of paper.

Solution

Solution:

Let the original rectangle be ABCDABCD. Let the fold line be XYXY with point XX lying on side ABAB and point YY lying on side CDCD. Consider the fold such that point DD lands on point BB. Let PP be the location of corner AA after the fold.

Figure 1

The two-sheets-thick area is BXY\triangle BXY which should be 80%80\%. By symmetry, triangles PXB\triangle PXB and CYB\triangle CYB are congruent with equal hypotenuses

BX=BY.BX = BY.

Triangles PXB\triangle PXB and CYB\triangle CYB have equal area and their total area is 20%20\% of rectangle ABCDABCD. Therefore BYC\triangle BYC has area 10%10\%. Hence the ratio of the areas BYC:BXY|BYC|:|BXY| is 10%:80%10\% : 80\%. Both triangles have height BCBC equal to the height of rectangle ABCDABCD. Therefore their bases are also in the ratio 1:81:8, i.e. XB=8YCXB = 8YC.

BY=XB=8YC.\therefore BY = XB = 8YC.

Now we apply Pythagoras' to BCY\triangle BCY to get

BC2=BY2CY2=(8CY)2CY2=63CY2.BC^{2} = BY^{2} - CY^{2} = (8CY)^{2} - CY^{2} = 63CY^{2}.

Therefore BC=63CYBC = \sqrt{63}\, CY.

Combining this with CD=CY+YD=CY+YB=9CYCD = CY + YD = CY + YB = 9CY we get

BC:CD=7:3.BC:CD = \sqrt{7}:3.

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