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Geometry Difficulty 4.1 AIME Find the answer

Triangle ABCABC has AB=40,AC=31,AB=40,AC=31, and sinA=15\sin{A}=\frac{1}{5}. This triangle is inscribed in rectangle AQRSAQRS with BB on QR\overline{QR} and CC on RS\overline{RS}. Find the maximum possible area of AQRSAQRS.

A number or a short expression. Spacing and $ signs are ignored.

Solution

Note that if angle BACBAC is obtuse, it would be impossible for the triangle to inscribed in a rectangle. This can easily be shown by drawing triangle ABC, where AA is obtuse. Therefore, angle A is acute. Let angle CAS=nCAS=n and angle BAQ=mBAQ=m. Then, AS=31cos(n)\overline{AS}=31\cos(n) and AQ=40cos(m)\overline{AQ}=40\cos(m). Then the area of rectangle AQRSAQRS is 1240cos(m)cos(n)1240\cos(m)\cos(n). By product-to-sum, cos(m)cos(n)=12(cos(m+n)+cos(mn))\cos(m)\cos(n)=\frac{1}{2}(\cos(m+n)+\cos(m-n)). cos(m+n)=sin(90mn)=sin(BAC)=15\cos(m+n)=\sin(90-m-n)=\sin(BAC)=\frac{1}{5}. The maximum possible value of cos(mn)\cos(m-n) is 1, which occurs when m=nm=n. Thus the maximum possible value of cos(m)cos(n)\cos(m)\cos(n) is 12(15+1)=35\frac{1}{2}(\frac{1}{5}+1)=\frac{3}{5} so the maximum possible area of AQRSAQRS is 1240×35=7441240\times{\frac{3}{5}}=\fbox{744}.

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Source: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.