Problem:
In a rectangular parallelepiped the length of the diagonal is and the total surface area is . Knowing that one of the sides is a mean proportional between the other two, the volume of is
Problem:
In a rectangular parallelepiped the length of the diagonal is and the total surface area is . Knowing that one of the sides is a mean proportional between the other two, the volume of is
Pick one
Solution:
The answer is (D). If we denote by and the lengths of the sides in increasing order, the hypotheses translate as
From the first two we obtain and hence . Substituting the third into the first we obtain , from which . Therefore the volume is . On the other hand, a parallelepiped with sides satisfies the hypotheses.