Triangle ABC has AB=40,AC=31, and sinA=51. This triangle is inscribed in rectangle AQRS with B on QR and C on RS. Find the maximum possible area of AQRS.
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Solution
Note that if angle BAC is obtuse, it would be impossible for the triangle to inscribed in a rectangle. This can easily be shown by drawing triangle ABC, where A is obtuse. Therefore, angle A is acute. Let angle CAS=n and angle BAQ=m. Then, AS=31cos(n) and AQ=40cos(m). Then the area of rectangle AQRS is 1240cos(m)cos(n). By product-to-sum, cos(m)cos(n)=21(cos(m+n)+cos(m−n)). cos(m+n)=sin(90−m−n)=sin(BAC)=51. The maximum possible value of cos(m−n) is 1, which occurs when m=n. Thus the maximum possible value of cos(m)cos(n) is 21(51+1)=53 so the maximum possible area of AQRS is 1240×53=744.
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