Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.2 AIME, harder Find the answer

Consider the eighth-sphere {(x,y,z)x,y,z0,x2+y2+z2=1}\left\{(x, y, z) \mid x, y, z \geq 0, x^{2}+y^{2}+z^{2}=1\right\}. What is the area of its projection onto the plane x+y+z=1x+y+z=1 ?

A number or a short expression. Fractions can be typed as 3/2, and spacing doesn't matter.

Solution

Consider the three flat faces of the eighth-ball. Each of these is a quarter-circle of radius 1, so each has area π4\frac{\pi}{4}. Furthermore, the projections of these faces cover the desired area without overlap. To find the projection factor one can find the cosine of the angle θ\theta between the planes, which is the same as the angle between their normal vectors. Using the dot product formula for the cosine of the angle between two vectors, cosθ=(1,0,0)(1,1,1)(1,0,0)(1,1,1)=13\cos \theta=\frac{(1,0,0) \cdot(1,1,1)}{|(1,0,0)|(1,1,1) \mid}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}. Therefore, each area is multiplied by 13\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}} by the projection, so the area of the projection is 3π413=π343 \cdot \frac{\pi}{4} \cdot \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}=\frac{\pi \sqrt{3}}{4}.

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