A square in the -plane has area , and three of its vertices have -coordinates 2, 0, and 18 in some order. Find the sum of all possible values of .
Solution
More generally, suppose three vertices of the square lie on lines . One of these vertices must be adjacent to two others. If that vertex is on and the other two are on and , then we can use the Pythagorean theorem to get that the square of the side length is . For , the possibilities are , so the sum is .
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