Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /420 of 520

Geometry Difficulty 3.8 AMC 10/12 Find the answer

In a given plane, points AA and BB are 1010 units apart. How many points CC are there in the plane such that the perimeter of ABC\triangle ABC is 5050 units and the area of ABC\triangle ABC is 100100 square units?

Pick one

Solution

Notice that whatever point we pick for CC, ABAB will be the base of the triangle. Without loss of generality, let points AA and BB be (0,0)(0,0) and (10,0)(10,0), since for any other combination of points, we can just rotate the plane to make them (0,0)(0,0) and (10,0)(10,0) under a new coordinate system. When we pick point CC, we have to make sure that its yy-coordinate is ±20\pm20, because that's the only way the area of the triangle can be 100100.
Now when the perimeter is minimized, by symmetry, we put CC in the middle, at (5,20)(5, 20). We can easily see that ACAC and BCBC will both be 202+52=425\sqrt{20^2+5^2} = \sqrt{425}. The perimeter of this minimal triangle is 2425+102\sqrt{425} + 10, which is larger than 5050. Since the minimum perimeter is greater than 5050, there is no triangle that satisfies the condition, giving us (A) 0\boxed{\textbf{(A) }0}.
~IronicNinja

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

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