GeometryDifficulty 7.2National olympiad, round 2Prove it
Example 3 On the coordinate plane, if the coordinates x0,y0 of a point (x0,y0) are both integers, then the point is called an integer point. Try to prove: on the coordinate plane, there does not exist a regular n-gon (n⩾7), such that all its vertices are integer points.
Solution
Proof Assume there exists a regular n-sided polygon A1A2A3⋯An(n⩾7), whose vertices A1,A2,⋯,An are all integer points.
Take any integer point M in the coordinate plane, and draw vectors MB1,MB2,MB3,⋯,MBn such that MB1=A1A2,MB2=A2A3,MB3=A3A4,⋯,MBn−1=An−1An,MBn=AnA1 (as shown in Figure 6-1).
Since A1,A2,⋯,An,M are all integer points, by vector coordinate operations, it can be known that B1,B2,⋯,Bn are all integer points.
It is also easy to see that MBi=MBi+1(i=1,2,⋯,n, define Bn+1=B1), and the angle between MBi and MBi+1 is n2π.
Therefore, the n-sided polygon B1B2⋯Bn is a regular n-sided polygon. It is easy to see that the n-sided polygon B1B2⋯Bn is similar to the n-sided polygon A1A2⋯An, with the similarity ratio being ∣A1A2∣∣B1B2∣=∣MB1∣∣B1B2∣, and since ∠B1MB2=n2π, then ∣MB1∣∣B1B2∣=2cosnπ.
So B1B2=2cosnπ⋅∣A1A2∣⩽2cos7π∣A1A2∣. This process can be repeated indefinitely, i.e., from the original regular n-sided polygon, a series of regular n-sided polygons can be obtained, each with a side length no greater than the previous regular n-sided polygon's side length multiplied by 2cos7π, i.e., for any m∈N+, there exists a convex n-sided polygon with all vertices being integer points, whose side length is no greater than (2cos7π)m⋅∣A1A2∣, but 2cos7π<1, so when m→+∞, (2cos7π)m⋅∣A1A2∣→0, while the distance between any two different integer points is at least 1, i.e., the side length of the regular n-sided polygon is no less than 1, leading to a contradiction.
Therefore, there does not exist a regular n-sided polygon (n⩾7) whose vertices are all integer points.
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