Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 7.3 National olympiad, round 2 Prove it

Minkowski's Theorem: Let KK be a convex figure in the xOyx O y plane, symmetric with respect to the origin, and with an area greater than 4. Prove: The figure KK must cover a lattice point other than the origin.

Solution

Prove that using lines parallel to the coordinate axes to divide the plane into some 2×22 \times 2 squares, and then translating all the squares that cover the points of KK to the same square, since the area of KK is greater than 4, there must be a point in this square that is covered by the squares containing points of KK twice, i.e., there are two points ABA \neq B in KK, whose differences in both the x-coordinates and y-coordinates are multiples of 2. Since the figure KK is symmetric about the origin, the point symmetric to AA about the origin is AA^{\prime}, then AKA^{\prime} \in K. Let B(x1,y1),A(x2,y2)B\left(x_{1}, y_{1}\right), A\left(x_{2}, y_{2}\right), then x1x2=2m,y1y2=2n,m,nZx_{1}-x_{2}=2 m, y_{1}-y_{2}=2 n, m, n \in \mathbf{Z}. Therefore, AA^{\prime} is (x2,y2)\left(-x_{2},-y_{2}\right), so the coordinates of the midpoint of ABA^{\prime} B^{\prime} are (x1x22,y1y22)=(m,n)(0,0)\left(\frac{x_{1}-x_{2}}{2}, \frac{y_{1}-y_{2}}{2}\right)=(m, n) \neq(0,0). Since KK is a convex figure, (m,n)(m, n) is inside KK.

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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.