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Geometry Difficulty 3.7 AMC 10/12 Find the answer

A hexagonal prism has a height of 165 cm. Its two hexagonal faces are regular hexagons with sides of length 30 cm. Its other six faces are rectangles. A fly and an ant start at point XX on the bottom face and travel to point YY on the top face. The fly flies directly along the shortest route through the prism. The ant crawls around the outside of the prism along a path of constant slope so that it winds around the prism exactly n+12n + \frac{1}{2} times, for some positive integer nn. The distance crawled by the ant is more than 20 times the distance flown by the fly. What is the smallest possible value of nn?

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

Solution

Throughout this solution, we remove the units (cm) as each length is in these same units. First, we calculate the distance flown by the fly, which we call ff. Let ZZ be the point on the base on the prism directly underneath YY. Since the hexagonal base has side length 30, then XZ=60XZ = 60. This is because a hexagon is divided into 6 equilateral triangles by its diagonals, and so the length of the diagonal is twice the side length of one of these triangles, which is twice the side length of the hexagon. Also, XZY\triangle XZY is right-angled at ZZ, since XZXZ lies in the horizontal base and YZYZ is vertical. By the Pythagorean Theorem, since XY>0XY > 0, then XY=XZ2+YZ2=602+1652XY = \sqrt{XZ^{2} + YZ^{2}} = \sqrt{60^{2} + 165^{2}}. Therefore, f=XY=602+1652f = XY = \sqrt{60^{2} + 165^{2}}. Next, we calculate the distance crawled by the ant, which we call aa. Since the ant crawls n+12n + \frac{1}{2} around the prism and its crawls along all 6 of the vertical faces each time around the prism, then it crawls along a total of 6(n+12)=6n+36(n + \frac{1}{2}) = 6n + 3 faces. To find aa, we 'unwrap' the exterior of the prism. Since the ant passes through 6n+36n + 3 faces, it travels a 'horizontal' distance of (6n+3)30(6n + 3) \cdot 30. Since the ant moves from the bottom of the prism to the top of the prism, it passes through a vertical distance of 165. Since the ant's path has a constant slope, its path forms the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle with base of length (6n+3)30(6n + 3) \cdot 30 and height of length 165. By the Pythagorean Theorem, since a>0a > 0, then a=((6n+3)30)2+1652a = \sqrt{((6n + 3) \cdot 30)^{2} + 165^{2}}. Now, we want aa to be at least 20f20f. In other words, we want to find the smallest possible value of nn for which a>20fa > 20f. Since these quantities are positive, the inequality a>20fa > 20f is equivalent to the inequality a2>202f2a^{2} > 20^{2}f^{2}. The following inequalities are equivalent: (6n+3)222+112>400(42+112)(6n + 3)^{2} \cdot 2^{2} + 11^{2} > 400(4^{2} + 11^{2}), 4(6n+3)2+121>4001374(6n + 3)^{2} + 121 > 400 \cdot 137, 4(6n+3)2>546794(6n + 3)^{2} > 54679, (6n+3)2>546794(6n + 3)^{2} > \frac{54679}{4}, 6n+3>5467946n + 3 > \sqrt{\frac{54679}{4}} (since both sides are positive), 6n>54679436n > \sqrt{\frac{54679}{4}} - 3, n>16(5467943)18.986n > \frac{1}{6}(\sqrt{\frac{54679}{4}} - 3) \approx 18.986. Therefore, the smallest positive integer nn for which this is true is n=19n = 19.

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