Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.5 AIME, harder Prove it Croatia

The lengths of all sides of a right-angled triangle are positive integers. If the radius of its incircle is of length 44, find all possible lengths of its legs.

Solution

Let aa and bb be the lengths of legs, cc be the length of hypotenuse, and r=4r = 4 be the radius of the incircle in the given triangle.
Expressing its area in two different ways, we get
ra+b+c2=ab2, r \cdot \frac{a + b + c}{2} = \frac{ab}{2},
ab4a4b=4c. ab - 4a - 4b = 4c.
Since c2=a2+b2c^2 = a^2 + b^2, it follows that ab(ab8a8b+32)=0ab(ab - 8a - 8b + 32) = 0. Considering that aa and bb are positive integers, we have ab8a8b+32=0ab - 8a - 8b + 32 = 0, i.e. (a8)(b8)=32(a - 8)(b - 8) = 32, hence both a8a - 8 and b8b - 8 must be divisors of 3232.
Without loss of generality, we can assume aba \leq b, i.e. a8b8a - 8 \leq b - 8. Therefore, among
a8=32,a8=1,a8=16,a8=2,a8=8,a8=4, \begin{align*} a - 8 &= -32, & a - 8 &= 1, \\ a - 8 &= -16, & a - 8 &= 2, \\ a - 8 &= -8, & a - 8 &= 4, \end{align*}
we find that (a,b){(9,40),(10,24),(12,16)}(a, b) \in \{(9, 40), (10, 24), (12, 16)\} satisfy the conditions of the problem.
Finally, these are all solutions:
(a,b){(9,40),(10,24),(12,16),(16,12),(24,10),(40,9)}. (a, b) \in \{(9, 40), (10, 24), (12, 16), (16, 12), (24, 10), (40, 9)\}.

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