Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 5.3 AIME, harder Prove it

13. (GRE 1) Show that 2060<sin20<2160\frac{20}{60}<\sin 20^{\circ}<\frac{21}{60}.

Solution

13. From elementary trigonometry we have sin3t=3sint4sin3t\sin 3 t=3 \sin t-4 \sin ^{3} t. Hence, if we denote y=sin20y=\sin 20^{\circ}, we have 3/2=sin60=3y4y3\sqrt{3} / 2=\sin 60^{\circ}=3 y-4 y^{3}. Obviously 0000 for 0x<1/20 \leq x<1 / 2. Now the desired inequality 2060=13<sin20<2160=720\frac{20}{60}=\frac{1}{3}<\sin 20^{\circ}<\frac{21}{60}=\frac{7}{20} follows from f(13)<32<f(720) f\left(\frac{1}{3}\right)<\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}<f\left(\frac{7}{20}\right) which is directly verified.

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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.