Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / Croatian Mathematical Society Competitions /6 of 14

Croatian Mathematical Society Competitions

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
r⋅a+b+c2=ab2, r \cdot \frac{a + b + c}{2} = \frac{ab}{2},
ab−4a−4b=4c. ab - 4a - 4b = 4c.
Since c2=a2+b2c^2 = a^2 + b^2, it follows that ab(ab−8a−8b+32)=0ab(ab - 8a - 8b + 32) = 0. Considering that aa and bb are positive integers, we have ab−8a−8b+32=0ab - 8a - 8b + 32 = 0, i.e. (a−8)(b−8)=32(a - 8)(b - 8) = 32, hence both a−8a - 8 and b−8b - 8 must be divisors of 3232.
Without loss of generality, we can assume a≤ba \leq b, i.e. a−8≤b−8a - 8 \leq b - 8. Therefore, among
a−8=−32,a−8=1,a−8=−16,a−8=2,a−8=−8,a−8=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)\}.

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,604 problems in a working order, from Junior Challenge level to the IMO shortlist.

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