Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /2 of 6

Geometry Difficulty 5.0 AIME Prove it United States

Problem:

Let n3n \geq 3 be a positive integer. Prove that given any nn angles 0<θ1,θ2,,θn<1800 < \theta_{1}, \theta_{2}, \ldots, \theta_{n} < 180^{\circ}, such that their sum is 180(n2)180(n-2) degrees, there exists a convex nn-gon having exactly those angles, in that order.

Solution

Solution:

We induct on nn. The statement holds trivially for n=3n=3, as all triangles are convex.

Now, suppose that the statement is true for n1n-1, where n4n \geq 4. Let θ1,θ2,,θn\theta_{1}, \theta_{2}, \ldots, \theta_{n} be nn angles less than 180180^{\circ} whose sum equals 180(n2)180(n-2) degrees. The statement is clearly true if n=4n=4 and θ1=θ3=180θ2=180θ4\theta_{1}=\theta_{3}=180^{\circ}-\theta_{2}=180^{\circ}-\theta_{4} since we can easily form a parallelogram, so assume otherwise.

I claim that there exist two adjacent angles whose sum is greater than 180180^{\circ}. Assume otherwise. Then, we have θi+θi+1180\theta_{i}+\theta_{i+1} \leq 180 for i=1,2,,ni=1,2, \ldots, n, where θn+1=θ1\theta_{n+1}=\theta_{1}. Summing these inequalities over all ii yields 2180(n2)180n2 \cdot 180(n-2) \leq 180 n, which is equivalent to n4n \leq 4. Of course, we can have n=4n=4 if and only if we have equality in each of the above inequalities, forcing us to have a parallelogram contrary to our assumption.

Hence, we have two adjacent angles with sum greater than 180180^{\circ}. Without loss of generality, let these angles be θn1\theta_{n-1} and θn\theta_{n}, relabeling if necessary. By the inductive hypothesis, we may construct an (n1)(n-1)-gon with angles θ1,θ2,,θn2,θn1+θn180\theta_{1}, \theta_{2}, \ldots, \theta_{n-2}, \theta_{n-1}+\theta_{n}-180^{\circ}, as these angles are each less than 180180^{\circ} and their sum equals 180(n3)180(n-3) degrees. Consider the vertex with angle θn1+θn180\theta_{n-1}+\theta_{n}-180^{\circ}. Note that we can "clip off" a triangle with angles θn1+θn180,180θn1\theta_{n-1}+\theta_{n}-180^{\circ}, 180^{\circ}-\theta_{n-1}, and 180θn180^{\circ}-\theta_{n} at this vertex, yielding an nn-gon with the desired angles, completing the inductive step.

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

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