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Geometry Difficulty 7.1 National olympiad, round 2 Find the answer

The cross of a convex nn-gon is the quadratic mean of the lengths between the possible pairs of vertices. For example, the cross of a 3×43 \times 4 rectangle is 32+32+42+42+52+526=536\sqrt{ \dfrac{3^2 + 3^2 + 4^2 + 4^2 + 5^2 + 5^2}{6} } = \dfrac{5}{3} \sqrt{6}.

Suppose SS is a dodecagon (1212-gon) inscribed in a unit circle. Find the greatest possible cross of SS.

A number or a short expression. Spacing and $ signs are ignored.

Solution

1. Define the vertices and their properties:
Let the vertices of the dodecagon S S be represented by vectors v1,v2,,v12 v_1, v_2, \ldots, v_{12} with the origin at the center of the unit circle. Since the dodecagon is inscribed in a unit circle, each vector vi v_i has a magnitude of 1, i.e., vi=1 \|v_i\| = 1 for all i i .

2. Calculate the sum of the squares of the distances between all pairs of vertices:
The distance between any two vertices vi v_i and vj v_j is given by vivj \|v_i - v_j\| . The square of this distance is:
vivj2=(vivj)(vivj)=vivi+vjvj2vivj=1+12vivj=22vivj \|v_i - v_j\|^2 = (v_i - v_j) \cdot (v_i - v_j) = v_i \cdot v_i + v_j \cdot v_j - 2 v_i \cdot v_j = 1 + 1 - 2 v_i \cdot v_j = 2 - 2 v_i \cdot v_j
Therefore, the sum of the squares of the distances between all pairs of vertices is:
i=112j=112vivj2=i=112j=112(22vivj) \sum_{i=1}^{12} \sum_{j=1}^{12} \|v_i - v_j\|^2 = \sum_{i=1}^{12} \sum_{j=1}^{12} (2 - 2 v_i \cdot v_j)

3. Simplify the double sum:
i=112j=112(22vivj)=2i=112j=11212i=112j=112vivj \sum_{i=1}^{12} \sum_{j=1}^{12} (2 - 2 v_i \cdot v_j) = 2 \sum_{i=1}^{12} \sum_{j=1}^{12} 1 - 2 \sum_{i=1}^{12} \sum_{j=1}^{12} v_i \cdot v_j
The first term simplifies to:
2i=112j=1121=21212=288 2 \sum_{i=1}^{12} \sum_{j=1}^{12} 1 = 2 \cdot 12 \cdot 12 = 288
The second term involves the dot product of the vectors. Since the vectors are unit vectors and the sum of the dot products of all pairs of vectors in a regular polygon is zero (due to symmetry and orthogonality properties):
i=112j=112vivj=0 \sum_{i=1}^{12} \sum_{j=1}^{12} v_i \cdot v_j = 0
Therefore, the sum of the squares of the distances is:
2880=288 288 - 0 = 288

4. Calculate the quadratic mean (QM) of the distances:
There are (122)=12112=66 \binom{12}{2} = \frac{12 \cdot 11}{2} = 66 pairs of vertices. The quadratic mean of the distances is:
QM=i=112j=112vivj266=28866=2411 \text{QM} = \sqrt{\frac{\sum_{i=1}^{12} \sum_{j=1}^{12} \|v_i - v_j\|^2}{66}} = \sqrt{\frac{288}{66}} = \sqrt{\frac{24}{11}}

5. Simplify the expression:
2411=2411=2611=26611 \sqrt{\frac{24}{11}} = \sqrt{\frac{24}{11}} = \frac{2\sqrt{6}}{\sqrt{11}} = \frac{2\sqrt{66}}{11}

The final answer is 26611\boxed{\frac{2\sqrt{66}}{11}}.

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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.