A cube has edge length 4 m. One end of a rope of length 5 m is anchored to the centre of the top face of the cube. What is the integer formed by the rightmost two digits of the integer closest to 100 times the area of the surface of the cube that can be reached by the other end of the rope?
Solution
The top face of the cube is a square, which we label , and we call its centre . Since the cube has edge length 4, then the side length of square is 4. This means that is a perpendicular distance of 2 from each of the sides of square , and thus is a distance of from each of the vertices of . These vertices are the farthest points on from . Since , then the loose end of the rope of length 5 can reach every point on , which has area 16. Next, the rope cannot reach to the bottom face of the cube because the shortest distance along the surface of the cube from to the bottom face is 6 and the rope has length 5. We will confirm this in another way shortly. Also, since the rope is anchored to the centre of the top face and all of the faces are square, the rope can reach the same area on each of the four side faces. Suppose that the area of one of the side faces that can be reached is . Since the rope can reach the entire area of the top face, then the total area that can be reached is . We thus need to determine the value of . Suppose that one of the side faces is square , which has side length 4. Consider the figure created by square and square together. We can think of this as an 'unfolding' of part of the cube. When the rope is stretched tight, its loose end traces across square an arc of a circle centred at and with radius 5. Notice that the farthest that the rope can reach down square is a distance of 3, since its anchor is a distance of 2 from . This confirms that the rope cannot reach the bottom face of the cube since it would have to cross to do so. Suppose that this arc cuts at and cuts at . We want to determine the area of square above (the shaded area); the area of this region is . We will calculate the value of by determining the area of rectangle and adding the area of the region between the circular arc and line segment . We will calculate this latter area by determining the area of sector and subtracting the area of . We note that . Let be the midpoint of ; thus . Since is isosceles with , then is perpendicular to . By the Pythagorean Theorem, . Thus, the area of is . Furthermore, since is a distance of 2 from and , then the height of rectangle is . Thus, the area of rectangle is . To find the area of sector , we note that the area of a circle with radius 5 is , and so the area of the sector is . Now, , since is right-angled at which means that . Thus, the area of the sector is . Putting this all together, we obtain . Therefore, the integer closest to is 6181, whose rightmost two digits are 81.