Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.3 AIME, harder Find the answer

A cylinder of base radius 1 is cut into two equal parts along a plane passing through the center of the cylinder and tangent to the two base circles. Suppose that each piece's surface area is mm times its volume. Find the greatest lower bound for all possible values of mm as the height of the cylinder varies.

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

Solution

Let hh be the height of the cylinder. Then the volume of each piece is half the volume of the cylinder, so it is 12πh\frac{1}{2} \pi h. The base of the piece has area π\pi, and the ellipse formed by the cut has area π11+h24\pi \cdot 1 \cdot \sqrt{1+\frac{h^{2}}{4}} because its area is the product of the semiaxes times π\pi. The rest of the area of the piece is half the lateral area of the cylinder, so it is πh\pi h. Thus, the value of mm is π+π1+h2/4+πhπh/2=2+2h+4+h2h=2h+2+4h2+1\frac{\pi+\pi \sqrt{1+h^{2} / 4}+\pi h}{\pi h / 2} =\frac{2+2 h+\sqrt{4+h^{2}}}{h} =\frac{2}{h}+2+\sqrt{\frac{4}{h^{2}}+1} a decreasing function of hh whose limit as hh \rightarrow \infty is 3 . Therefore the greatest lower bound of mm is 3 .

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