A rectangular piece of paper has and . The piece of paper is glued flat on the surface of a large cube so that and are at vertices of the cube. What is the shortest distance from to , as measured through the cube?
Solution
Since is rectangular, then . Also, and . By the Pythagorean Theorem in , since , we have . Draw perpendiculars from and to and , respectively, on . Also, join to . We want to determine the length of . Now, since is right-angled at , then and . Therefore, and . Since is congruent to (three equal side lengths), then and . Since , then . Consider , which is right-angled at . By the Pythagorean Theorem, . Next, consider . Since lies in the top face of the cube and is perpendicular to this face, then is right-angled at . By the Pythagorean Theorem, since , we have . Of the given answers, this is closest to 18.4.
Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track
puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.