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Croatian Mathematical Competitions

Number theory Difficulty 5.3 AIME, harder Prove it Croatia

The lengths of all sides of a quadrilateral are integers, and each of them is a divisor of the sum of the other three lengths. Prove that at least two of the sides of that quadrilateral have equal lengths.

Solution

On the contrary, let's assume that all sides are of different lengths; i.e. a<b<c<da < b < c < d (aa, bb, cc, dd are lengths of the sides, ordered by their length). Each of the lengths is a divisor of S=a+b+c+dS = a + b + c + d, by assumption.
Also, it must be a+b+c>da + b + c > d or equivalently S>2dS > 2d and finally Sd>2\frac{S}{d} > 2. Since dd is a divisor of SS it follows that Sd≥3\frac{S}{d} \ge 3. Now we have c<d≤S3c < d \le \frac{S}{3} and since cc is a divisor of SS, it follows that c≤S4c \le \frac{S}{4}. Analogously we obtain b≤S5b \le \frac{S}{5} and a≤S6a \le \frac{S}{6}.
Then
S=a+b+c+d≤S6+S5+S4+S3=S(16+15+14+13)=5760S<S. S = a + b + c + d \le \frac{S}{6} + \frac{S}{5} + \frac{S}{4} + \frac{S}{3} = S \left( \frac{1}{6} + \frac{1}{5} + \frac{1}{4} + \frac{1}{3} \right) = \frac{57}{60} S < S.
Contradiction!

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