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Geometry Difficulty 4.0 AMC 10/12 Find the answer

If a,ba,b, and dd are the lengths of a side, a shortest diagonal and a longest diagonal, respectively,
of a regular nonagon (see adjoining figure), then

Pick one

Solution

By the law of cosines we can get the following expressions for d2d^{2} and b2b^{2}:
d2=2b2(1cos(100))d^{2}=2b^{2}(1-\cos (100^\circ)) b2=2a2(1cos(140))b^{2}=2a^{2}(1-\cos (140^\circ))
We can substitute what we got for b2b^2 into the expression for d2d^{2}:
d2=4a2(1cos(140))(1cos(100))=4a2(1(cos(100)+cos(140))+cos(100)cos(140))d^{2}=4a^{2}(1-\cos (140^\circ))(1-\cos (100^\circ))=4a^{2}(1-(\cos (100^\circ)+\cos (140^\circ))+\cos (100^\circ)\cos (140^\circ))
Now apply sum-to-product and product-to-sum identities:
d2=4a2(1(2cos(120)cos(120))+12(cos(240)+cos(40)))d^{2}=4a^{2}(1-(2\cos (120^\circ)\cos (120^\circ))+\frac{1}{2}(\cos (240^\circ)+\cos (40^\circ)))
Simplifying further gives us: d2=4a2(1+cos(20)14+12cos(40))d^{2}=4a^{2}(1+\cos (20^\circ)-\frac{1}{4}+\frac{1}{2}\cos (40^\circ))
After using the fact that cos(40)=2cos2(20)1\cos (40^\circ)=2\cos^2 (20^\circ)-1, it's not hard to see that the expression in the parentheses is equal to (cos(20)+12)2(\cos (20^\circ)+\frac{1}{2})^{2}. So we can square-root both sides to find the expression for dd:
d=2a(cos(20)+12)d=2a(\cos (20^\circ)+\frac{1}{2})
Now let's look at the expression for b2b^2. We can apply the reverse of the double angle identity to show that 1cos(140)1-\cos (140^\circ) equals 2sin2(70))2\sin^2 (70^\circ)). So if we square root the entire expression we get that b=2asin(70)=2acos(20)b=2a\sin (70^\circ)=2a\cos (20^\circ)
We now have everything in terms of aa. Luckily when we consider choice A\textbf{A} we can verify without much work that this must be the answer.
Solution by harita19

NOTE: a much easier solution exists by drawing some lines and recognizing that the nonagon is cyclic, but for those of use who use algebra in every geometry problem, this is the best solution.

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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.