Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.2 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:

Points XX and YY are inside a unit square. The score of a vertex of the square is the minimum distance from that vertex to XX or YY. What is the minimum possible sum of the scores of the vertices of the square?

Solution

Solution:

Answer: 6+22\frac{\sqrt{6}+\sqrt{2}}{2}

Let the square be ABCDABCD. First, suppose that all four vertices are closer to XX than YY. Then, by the triangle inequality, the sum of the scores is AX+BX+CX+DXAB+CD=2AX + BX + CX + DX \geq AB + CD = 2.

Similarly, suppose exactly two vertices are closer to XX than YY. Here, we have two distinct cases: the vertices closer to XX are either adjacent or opposite. Again, by the triangle inequality, it follows that the sum of the scores of the vertices is at least 22.

On the other hand, suppose that AA is closer to XX and B,C,DB, C, D are closer to YY. We wish to compute the minimum value of AX+BY+CY+DYAX + BY + CY + DY, but note that we can make X=AX = A to simply minimize BY+CY+DYBY + CY + DY. We now want YY to be the Fermat point of triangle BCDBCD, so that BYC=CYD=DYB=120\measuredangle BYC = \measuredangle CYD = \measuredangle DYB = 120^{\circ}.

Note that by symmetry, we must have BCY=DCY=45\measuredangle BCY = \measuredangle DCY = 45^{\circ}, so CBY=CDY=15\measuredangle CBY = \measuredangle CDY = 15^{\circ}.

And now we use the law of sines: BY=DY=sin45sin120BY = DY = \frac{\sin 45^{\circ}}{\sin 120^{\circ}} and CY=sin15sin120CY = \frac{\sin 15^{\circ}}{\sin 120^{\circ}}. Now, we have BY+CY+DY=2+62BY + CY + DY = \frac{\sqrt{2} + \sqrt{6}}{2}, which is less than 22, so this is our answer.

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