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Geometry Difficulty 2.8 Junior Find the answer

A square is cut along a diagonal and reassembled to form a parallelogram PQRS PQRS . If PR=90 mm PR=90 \mathrm{~mm} , what is the area of the original square, in mm2 \mathrm{mm}^{2} ?

A number or a short expression. Fractions can be typed as 3/2, and spacing doesn't matter.

Solution

Suppose that the original square had side length x mm x \mathrm{~mm} . We extend PQ PQ and draw a line through R R perpendicular to PQ PQ , meeting PQ PQ extended at T T . SRTQ SRTQ is a square, since it has three right angles at S,Q,T S, Q, T (which makes it a rectangle) and since SR=SQ SR=SQ (which makes the rectangle a square). Now RT=SQ=x mm RT=SQ=x \mathrm{~mm} and PT=PQ+QT=2x mm PT=PQ+QT=2x \mathrm{~mm} . By the Pythagorean Theorem, PR2=PT2+RT2 PR^{2}=PT^{2}+RT^{2} and so 902=x2+(2x)2 90^{2}=x^{2}+(2x)^{2} . Therefore, 5x2=8100 5x^{2}=8100 or x2=1620 x^{2}=1620 . The area of the original square is x2 mm2 x^{2} \mathrm{~mm}^{2} , which equals 1620 mm2 1620 \mathrm{~mm}^{2} .

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