Let be the set of lattice points inside the circle . Let be the greatest area of any triangle with vertices in . How many triangles with vertices in have area ?
Solution
The boundary of the convex hull of consists of points with or , , and . For any triangle with vertices in , we can increase its area by moving a vertex not on the boundary to some point on the boundary. Thus, if has area , its vertices are all on the boundary of . The next step is to see (either by inspection or by noting that T has area no larger than that of an equilateral triangle inscribed in a circle of radius , which has area less than 13) that . There are 16 triangles with area 12 , all congruent to one of the following three: vertices , and ; vertices , and ; or vertices , , and .
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