Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /96 of 348

Geometry Difficulty 4.8 AIME Find the answer

Let PP be a point inside regular pentagon ABCDEA B C D E such that PAB=48\angle P A B=48^{\circ} and PDC=42\angle P D C=42^{\circ}. Find BPC\angle B P C, in degrees.

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

Solution

Since a regular pentagon has interior angles 108108^{\circ}, we can compute PDE=66,PAE=60\angle P D E=66^{\circ}, \angle P A E=60^{\circ}, and APD=360AEDPDEPAE=126\angle A P D=360^{\circ}-\angle A E D-\angle P D E-\angle P A E=126^{\circ}. Now observe that drawing PEP E divides quadrilateral PAEDP A E D into equilateral triangle PAEP A E and isosceles triangle PEDP E D, where DPE=EDP=66\angle D P E=\angle E D P=66^{\circ}. That is, we get PA=PE=sP A=P E=s, where ss is the side length of the pentagon. Now triangles PABP A B and PEDP E D are congruent (with angles 48666648^{\circ}-66^{\circ}-66^{\circ}), so PD=PBP D=P B and PDC=PBC=42\angle P D C=\angle P B C=42^{\circ}. This means that triangles PDCP D C and PBCP B C are congruent (side-angle-side), so BPC=DPC\angle B P C=\angle D P C. Finally, we compute BPC+DPC=2BPC=360APBEPADPE=168\angle B P C+\angle D P C=2 \angle B P C=360^{\circ}-\angle A P B-\angle E P A-\angle D P E=168^{\circ}, meaning BPC=84\angle B P C=84^{\circ}.

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

Source: Omni-MATH, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.