Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 6.0 AIME, harder Prove it

15. (USS) IMO5{ }^{\mathrm{IMO} 5} Is it possible to plot 1975 points on a circle with radius 1 so that the distance between any two of them is a rational number (distances have to be measured by chords)?

Solution

15. Assume that the center of the circle is at the origin O(0,0)O(0,0), and that the points A1,A2,,A1975A_{1}, A_{2}, \ldots, A_{1975} are arranged on the upper half-circle so that AiOA1=αi(α1=0)\angle A_{i} O A_{1}=\alpha_{i}\left(\alpha_{1}=0\right). The distance AiAjA_{i} A_{j} equals 2sinαjαi2=2sinαj2cosαi2cosαj2sinαi22 \sin \frac{\alpha_{j}-\alpha_{i}}{2} = 2 \sin \frac{\alpha_{j}}{2} \cos \frac{\alpha_{i}}{2} - \cos \frac{\alpha_{j}}{2} \sin \frac{\alpha_{i}}{2}, and it will be rational if all sinαk2,cosαk2\sin \frac{\alpha_{k}}{2}, \cos \frac{\alpha_{k}}{2} are rational. Finally, observe that there exist infinitely many angles α\alpha such that both sinα,cosα\sin \alpha, \cos \alpha are rational, and that such α\alpha can be arbitrarily small. For example, take α\alpha so that sinα=2tt2+1\sin \alpha = \frac{2 t}{t^{2}+1} and cosα=t21t2+1\cos \alpha = \frac{t^{2}-1}{t^{2}+1} for any tQt \in \mathbb{Q}.

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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.