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Geometry Difficulty 5.6 AIME, harder Prove it China

Given a tetrahedron ABCDABCD, it is known that ADB=BDC=CDA=60\angle ADB = \angle BDC = \angle CDA = 60^\circ, AD=BD=3AD = BD = 3 and CD=2CD = 2. Then the radius of the sphere circumscribing ABCDABCD is ______.

Solution

Let the center of the sphere circumscribing ABCDABCD be OO. Then OO is on the vertical line of plane ABDABD through point NN the circumcenter of ABD\triangle ABD. It is known that ABD\triangle ABD is regular, so NN is the center of it. Let PP and MM be the midpoints of ABAB and CDCD, respectively. Then NN is on DPDP with ONDPON \perp DP and OMCDOM \perp CD.

Figure 1

Let θ\theta denote the angle between CDCD and plane ABDABD. From
CDA=CDB=ADB=60, \angle CDA = \angle CDB = \angle ADB = 60^\circ,
we find cosθ=13\cos \theta = \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}, sinθ=23\sin \theta = \frac{\sqrt{2}}{\sqrt{3}}.

Since DM=12CD=1DM = \frac{1}{2}CD = 1, DN=23DP=323=3DN = \frac{2}{3} \cdot DP = \frac{\sqrt{3}}{2} \cdot 3 = \sqrt{3}, by cosine theorem we have, in DMN\triangle DMN,
MN2=DM2+DN22DMDNcosθ=12+(3)221313=2, \begin{aligned} MN^2 &= DM^2 + DN^2 - 2 \cdot DM \cdot DN \cdot \cos \theta \\ &= 1^2 + (\sqrt{3})^2 - 2 \cdot 1 \cdot \sqrt{3} \cdot \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}} = 2, \end{aligned}
that is MN=2MN = \sqrt{2}. The radius of the sphere circumscribing ABCDABCD is then
OD=MNsinθ=22=3. OD = \frac{MN}{\sin \theta} = \frac{\sqrt{2}}{\sqrt{2}} = \sqrt{3}.
The answer is R=3R = \sqrt{3}.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.