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Geometry Difficulty 5.9 AIME, harder Prove it Brazil

The circumcenter of a tetrahedron lies inside the tetrahedron. Show that at least one of its edges is at least as long as the edge of a regular tetrahedron with the same circumsphere.
(1989)

Solution

There are two main steps in the proof: first, we'll prove a tridimensional analogous to the famous R2rR \ge 2r inequality; then, we'll prove the bidimensional analogous to the problem. Combining these two facts and other arguments will lead us to a solution.

The first step is proving that if RR and rr are the circumradius and the inradius of the circumscribed and inscribed spheres of a tetrahedron TT then R3rR \ge 3r.

To do this, consider the tetrahedron TT' whose vertices are the centroids of the faces of TT. Then TT' is similar to TT, with ratio 1:31 : 3 (the faces of TT' are parallel to the faces of TT and the ratio of the altitudes is 1:31 : 3). The circumradius of TT', which is R3\frac{R}{3}, must be bigger than rr, because the smallest sphere through four points, one in each face of TT, is the inscribed sphere. So R3rR \ge 3r.

Now we prove that if ABCABC is not obtusangle and has all sides smaller than the side ll of an equilateral triangle then the circumradius RR of ABCABC is less than the circumradius RR' of the equilateral triangle. Indeed, by the sine law, if aa is the greater side of ABCABC then 60A9060^{\circ} \le \angle A \le 90^{\circ} and 2R=asinA<lsin60=2R2R = \frac{a}{\sin \angle A} < \frac{l}{\sin 60^{\circ}} = 2R'. Let TT be a tetrahedron and UU be the regular tetrahedron with edge length aa and same circumradius RR as TT. Let OO be the circumcenter of both TT and UU and suppose ABCABC is the face nearer to OO. Since OO is inside TT, by problem 2 of 1987 its projection OO', which is the circumcenter of ABCABC, lies inside ABCABC, so ABCABC is not obtusangle. Thus its circumradius RR' is less than the circumradius RR'' of the equilateral triangle with side aa.

If d1d2d3d4d_1 \le d_2 \le d_3 \le d_4 are the distances from OO to each face (d1d_1 being the distance OOOO' from OO to ABCABC) and S1,S2,S3,S4S_1, S_2, S_3, S_4 the corresponding areas of the faces, then the volume VV of TT is such that
3V=d1S1+d2S2+d3S3+d4S4=r(S1+S2+S3+S4)    r=S1d1+S2d2+S3d3+S4d4S1+S2+S3+S4, 3V = d_1S_1 + d_2S_2 + d_3S_3 + d_4S_4 = r(S_1 + S_2 + S_3 + S_4) \\ \implies r = \frac{S_1d_1 + S_2d_2 + S_3d_3 + S_4d_4}{S_1 + S_2 + S_3 + S_4},
that is, rr is the weighted mean of d1,d2,d3,d4d_1, d_2, d_3, d_4 (the weights are the SiS_i's). This means that the smallest value d1d_1 is not bigger than rr, that is, d1rd_1 \le r.

The triangle formed by OO, its projection OO' and AA is right-angled in OO'. So d12=R2R2d_1^2 = R^2 - R'^2 and then R2R2r2    R2R2r2R^2 - R'^2 \le r^2 \iff R'^2 \ge R^2 - r^2. But, by looking at UU, a=3R=236R    R2=89R2a = \sqrt{3}R'' = \frac{2}{3}\sqrt{6}R \implies R''^2 = \frac{8}{9}R^2. But R>RR'' > R', so 89R2>R2r2    R<3r\frac{8}{9}R^2 > R^2 - r^2 \iff R < 3r, a contradiction. So one of the sides of ABCABC does not exceed aa.

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