Maths Olympiad Prep

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, 2007

Geometry Difficulty 6.4 National olympiad Prove it Japan

How many ways are there to cut a cube SS into tetrahedron {T1,,Tk}\{T_1, \dots, T_k\} with following properties?
(1) Every vertex of T1,,TkT_1, \dots, T_k is one of the vertices of SS.
(2) For every iji \neq j, the intersection of TiT_i and TjT_j is a common face of them, a common edge of them, a common vertex of them or empty.

Solution

Consider a division of cube S=ABCDEFGHS = ABCD - EFGH into T1,,TkT_1, \cdots, T_k with properties in the problem. Then one of the below holds.
* ABC\triangle ABC and ACD\triangle ACD is a face of a tetrahedron.
* ABD\triangle ABD and BCD\triangle BCD is a face of a tetrahedron.
By symmetry we can get the answer by counting the former case and double it. Assume that T1T_1 has ABC\triangle ABC as its face. Then T1T_1 is ABCEABCE, ABCFABCF, ABCGABCG or ABCHABCH.

(1)T1=ABCE.(1) \quad T_1 = ABCE.
There must be another tetrahedron T2T_2 with face ACE\triangle ACE. T2T_2 is ACDEACDE or ACEHACEH.

(a)T2=ACDE.(a) \quad T_2 = ACDE.
There must be another tetrahedron T3T_3 with face CDE\triangle CDE. T3T_3 is CDEGCDEG or CDEHCDEH.

i. T3=CDEGT_3 = CDEG.
There must be DEGHDEGH. Then we need to count the ways of dividing the square pyramid BCGFEBCGF - E. There are 2 ways: {BCEG,BEFG}\{BCEG, BEFG\} and {BCEF,CEFG}\{BCEF, CEFG\}.

ii. T3=CDEHT_3 = CDEH.
We need to count the ways of dividing the triangle prism BEFCHGBEF - CHG such that each of BCE\triangle BCE and CEH\triangle CEH is a face of a tetrahedron. There are 3 ways: {BCEF,CEFG,CEGH}\{BCEF, CEFG, CEGH\}, {BCEF,CEFH,CFGH}\{BCEF, CEFH, CFGH\} and {BCEG,BEFG,CEFH}\{BCEG, BEFG, CEFH\}.
So there are 5 ways in the case T2=ACDET_2 = ACDE.

(b)T2=ACEH.(b) \quad T_2 = ACEH.
There must be ACDHACDH. Then we need to count the ways of dividing the triangle prism BEFCHGBEF - CHG such that each of BCE\triangle BCE and CEH\triangle CEH. There are 3 ways, as we counted in (1)(a)ii.
Therefore, we have 8 ways in the case T1=ABCET_1 = ABCE.

(2) T1=ABCFT_1 = ABCF.
There must be another tetrahedron T2T_2 with face ΔACF\Delta ACF. T2T_2 is ACFHACFH, ACDFACDF, ACEFACEF or ACFGACFG.

(a) T2=AFCHT_2 = AFCH.
There is only 1 way: the remaining tetrahedron must be ACDHACDH, AEFHAEFH and CFGHCFGH.

(b) T2=ACDF,ACEF,ACFGT_2 = ACDF, ACEF, ACFG.
These 3 cases are all congruent, so we only have to consider the case T2=ACDFT_2 = ACDF. Since if we remove ABCFABCF and ACDFACDF from SS, there remains a shape congruent to the case ABCEABCE and ACDEACDE removed, there are 5 ways to divide the remaining shape, as we counted in (1)(a). So there are 15 ways in this case.
Therefore we have 16 ways in the case T1=ABCFT_1 = ABCF.

(3) T1=ABCGT_1 = ABCG.
Same as T1=ABCET_1 = ABCE. We have 8 ways.

(4) T1=ABCHT_1 = ABCH.
There must be ACDHACDH. Since if we remove ABCHABCH and ACDHACDH from SS, there remains a shape congruent to the case ABCEABCE and ACDEACDE removed, there are 5 ways to divide the remaining shape, as we counted in (1)(a).

By these, we get the answer (8+16+8+5)×2=74(8 + 16 + 8 + 5) \times 2 = 74.

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