Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.2 AIME, harder Find the answer

Four points are independently chosen uniformly at random from the interior of a regular dodecahedron. What is the probability that they form a tetrahedron whose interior contains the dodecahedron's center?

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

Solution

Situate the origin OO at the dodecahedron's center, and call the four random points PiP_{i}, where 1i41 \leq i \leq 4. To any tetrahedron P1P2P3P4P_{1} P_{2} P_{3} P_{4} we can associate a quadruple (ϵ(ijk))\left(\epsilon_{(i j k)}\right), where (ijk)(i j k) ranges over all conjugates of the cycle (123) in the alternating group A4:ϵijkA_{4}: \epsilon_{i j k} is the sign of the directed volume [OPiPjPk]\left[O P_{i} P_{j} P_{k}\right]. Assume that, for a given tetrahedron P1P2P3P4P_{1} P_{2} P_{3} P_{4}, all members of its quadruple are nonzero (this happens with probability 1). For 1i1 \leq i \leq 4, if we replace PiP_{i} with its reflection through the origin, the three members of the tetrahedron's quadruple that involve PiP_{i} all flip sign, because each [OPiPjPk]\left[O P_{i} P_{j} P_{k}\right] is a linear function of the vector OP\overrightarrow{O P}. Thus, if we consider the 16 sister tetrahedra obtained by choosing independently whether to flip each PiP_{i} through the origin, the quadruples range through all 16 possibilities (namely, all the quadruples consisting of ±1 s\pm 1 \mathrm{~s}). Two of these 16 tetrahedra, namely those with quadruples (1,1,1,1)(1,1,1,1) and (1,1,1,1)(-1,-1,-1,-1), will contain the origin. So the answer is 2/16=1/82 / 16=1 / 8.

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