GeometryDifficulty 6.4National olympiadFind the answer
Consider a rectangle whose lengths of sides are natural numbers. If someone places as many squares as possible, each with area 3, inside of the given rectangle, such that the sides of the squares are parallel to the rectangle sides, then the maximal number of these squares fill exactly half of the area of the rectangle. Determine the dimensions of all rectangles with this property.
A number or a short expression. Fractions can be typed as 3/2, and spacing doesn't matter.
Solution
Let ABCD be a rectangle with AB=m and AD=n where m,n are natural numbers such that m≥n≥2. Suppose that inside of the rectangle ABCD is placed a rectangular lattice consisting of some identical squares whose areas are equal to 3, where k of them are placed along the side AB and l of them along the side AD.
The sum of areas of all of these squares is equal to 3kl. Besides the obvious conditions k3≤m and (l+1)3>n (2).
The proposed problem is to determine all pairs (m,n)∈N×N with m≥n≥2, for which the ratio Rm,n=mn3kl is equal to 0.5 where k,l are natural numbers determined by the conditions (1) and (2).
Observe that for n≥6, using (2), we get Rm,n=mnk3⋅l3>mn(m−3)(n−3)=(1−m3)(1−n3)≥(1−63)2=21+127−33>21+1248−33=0.5
So, the condition Rm,n=0.5 yields n≤5 or n∈{2,3,4,5}. We have 4 possible cases:
Case 1: n=2. Then l=1 and thus as above we get Rm,2=2m3k>2m3⋅(m−3)=23⋅(1−m3), which is greater than 0.5 for each m>227+3>25+3=4, hence m∈{2,3,4}. Direct calculations give R2,2=R2,4=0.75 and R2,3=0.5.
Case 2: n=3. Then l=1 and thus as above we get Rm,3=3m3k>3m3⋅(m−3)=33⋅(1−m3), which is greater than 0.5 for each m>43+6>12, hence m∈{3,4,…,12}. Direct calculations give R3,3=0.(3),R3,5=0.4,R3,7=4/7,R3,9=5/9,R3,11=6/11 and R3,4=R3,6=R3,8=R3,10=R3,12=0.5.
Case 3: n=4. Then l=2 and thus as above we get Rm,4=4m6k>2m3⋅(m−3)=23⋅(1−m3), which is greater than 0.5 for each m>227+3>25+3=4.
Hence m=4 and a calculation gives R4,4=0.75.
Case 4: n=5. Then l=2 and thus as above we get Rm,5=5m6k>5m23⋅(m−3)=523⋅(1−m3), which is greater than 0.5 for each m>2312(43+5)>2312⋅11>6, hence m∈{5,6}. Direct calculations give R5,5=0.48 and R5,6=0.6.
We conclude that: Ri,j=0.5 for (i,j)∈{(2,3);(3,4);(3,6);(3,8);(3,10);(3,12)}.
These pairs are the dimensions of all rectangles with the desired property.
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