Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.2 AIME, harder Find the answer

Let ABCABC be a triangle in the plane with AB=13,BC=14,AC=15AB=13, BC=14, AC=15. Let MnM_{n} denote the smallest possible value of (APn+BPn+CPn)1n\left(AP^{n}+BP^{n}+CP^{n}\right)^{\frac{1}{n}} over all points PP in the plane. Find limnMn\lim _{n \rightarrow \infty} M_{n}.

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

Solution

Let RR denote the circumradius of triangle ABCABC. As ABCABC is an acute triangle, it isn't hard to check that for any point PP, we have either APR,BPRAP \geq R, BP \geq R, or CPRCP \geq R. Also, note that if we choose P=OP=O (the circumcenter) then (APn+BPn+CPn)=3Rn\left(AP^{n}+BP^{n}+CP^{n}\right)=3 \cdot R^{n}. Therefore, we have the inequality RminPR2(APn+BPn+CPn)1n(3Rn)1n=R31nR \leq \min _{P \in \mathbb{R}^{2}}\left(AP^{n}+BP^{n}+CP^{n}\right)^{\frac{1}{n}} \leq\left(3 R^{n}\right)^{\frac{1}{n}}=R \cdot 3^{\frac{1}{n}}. Taking nn \rightarrow \infty yields RlimnMnRR \leq \lim _{n \rightarrow \infty} M_{n} \leq R (as limn31n=1\lim _{n \rightarrow \infty} 3^{\frac{1}{n}}=1 ), so the answer is R=658R=\frac{65}{8}.

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