Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /61 of 348

Geometry Difficulty 4.7 AIME Find the answer

A square in the xyxy-plane has area AA, and three of its vertices have xx-coordinates 2, 0, and 18 in some order. Find the sum of all possible values of AA.

A number or a short expression. Spacing and $ signs are ignored.

Solution

More generally, suppose three vertices of the square lie on lines y=y1,y=y2,y=y3y=y_{1}, y=y_{2}, y=y_{3}. One of these vertices must be adjacent to two others. If that vertex is on y=y1y=y_{1} and the other two are on y=y2y=y_{2} and y=y3y=y_{3}, then we can use the Pythagorean theorem to get that the square of the side length is (y2y1)2+(y3y1)2(y_{2}-y_{1})^{2}+(y_{3}-y_{1})^{2}. For (y1,y2,y3)=(2,0,18)(y_{1}, y_{2}, y_{3})=(2,0,18), the possibilities are 22+162,22+182,162+1822^{2}+16^{2}, 2^{2}+18^{2}, 16^{2}+18^{2}, so the sum is 2(22+162+182)=2(4+256+324)=11682(2^{2}+16^{2}+18^{2})=2(4+256+324)=1168.

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.