Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 4.8 AIME Find the answer

6. If three lines aa, bb, and cc in space are pairwise skew lines, then the number of lines that intersect with aa, bb, and cc is:

Pick one

Solution

6. D.

First, regardless of the positional relationship between aa, bb, and cc, we can always construct a parallelepiped ABCDA B C D A1B1C1D1A_{1} B_{1} C_{1} D_{1} such that ABA B lies on line aa, B1C1B_{1} C_{1} lies on line bb, and D1DD_{1} D lies on line cc. Then, take any point MM on the extension of DD1D D_{1}. Draw a plane α\alpha through MM and line aa. Plane α\alpha intersects line B1C1B_{1} C_{1} at point PP and line A1D1A_{1} D_{1} at point QQ, so PQaP Q \parallel a. Therefore, in plane α\alpha, line PMP M is not parallel to aa, and PMP M must intersect aa at a point NN. Thus, line MNM N intersects lines aa, bb, and cc simultaneously. Since there are infinitely many ways to choose point MM, there are infinitely many lines that intersect aa, bb, and cc simultaneously.

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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.