Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.1 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:

Let ABCDABCD be a regular tetrahedron, and let OO be the centroid of triangle BCDBCD. Consider the point PP on AOAO such that PP minimizes PA+2(PB+PC+PD)PA + 2(PB + PC + PD). Find sinPBO\sin \angle PBO.

Solution

Solution:

16\boxed{\dfrac{1}{6}}

We translate the problem into one about 2-D geometry. Consider the right triangle ABOABO, and PP is some point on AOAO. Then, the choice of PP minimizes PA+6PBPA + 6PB. Construct the line \ell through AA but outside the triangle ABOABO so that sin(AO,)=16\sin \angle(AO, \ell) = \dfrac{1}{6}. For whichever PP chosen, let QQ be the projection of PP onto \ell, then PQ=16APPQ = \dfrac{1}{6} AP. Then, since PA+6PB=6(PQ+PB)PA + 6PB = 6(PQ + PB), it is equivalent to minimize PQ+PBPQ + PB. Observe that this sum is minimized when B,P,QB, P, Q are collinear and the line through them is perpendicular to \ell (so that PQ+PBPQ + PB is simply the distance from BB to \ell). Then, AQB=90\angle AQB = 90^\circ, and since AOB=90\angle AOB = 90^\circ as well, we see that A,Q,P,BA, Q, P, B are concyclic. Therefore, PBO=OPA=(AO,)\angle PBO = \angle OPA = \angle(AO, \ell), and the sine of this angle is therefore 16\dfrac{1}{6}.

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