Maths Olympiad Prep

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HMMT November, 2019

Geometry Difficulty 5.0 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:

A positive integer nn is infallible if it is possible to select nn vertices of a regular 100-gon so that they form a convex, non-self-intersecting nn-gon having all equal angles. Find the sum of all infallible integers nn between 3 and 100, inclusive.

Solution

Solution:

Suppose A1A2…AnA_{1} A_{2} \ldots A_{n} is an equiangular nn-gon formed from the vertices of a regular 100-gon. Note that the angle ∠A1A2A3\angle A_{1} A_{2} A_{3} is determined only by the number of vertices of the 100-gon between A1A_{1} and A3A_{3}. Thus in order for A1A2…AnA_{1} A_{2} \ldots A_{n} to be equiangular, we require exactly that A1,A3,…A_{1}, A_{3}, \ldots are equally spaced and A2,A4,…A_{2}, A_{4}, \ldots are equally spaced. If nn is odd, then all the vertices must be equally spaced, meaning n∣100n \mid 100. If nn is even, we only need to be able to make a regular (n2)\left(\frac{n}{2}\right)-gon from the vertices of a 100-gon, which we can do if n∣200n \mid 200. Thus the possible values of nn are 4,5,8,10,20,25,40,504, 5, 8, 10, 20, 25, 40, 50, and 100100, for a total of 262262.

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