Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.3 AIME, harder Find the answer

Two 18-24-30 triangles in the plane share the same circumcircle as well as the same incircle. What's the area of the region common to both the triangles?

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

Solution

Notice, first of all, that 18243018-24-30 is 6 times 3453-4-5, so the triangles are right. Thus, the midpoint of the hypotenuse of each is the center of their common circumcircle, and the inradius is 12(18+2430)=6\frac{1}{2}(18+24-30)=6. Let one of the triangles be ABCA B C, where A<B<C=90\angle A<\angle B<\angle C=90^{\circ}. Now the line \ell joining the midpoints of sides ABA B and ACA C is tangent to the incircle, because it is the right distance (12) from line BCB C. So, the hypotenuse of the other triangle lies along \ell. We may formulate this thus: The hypotenuse of each triangle is parallel to the shorter leg, and therefore perpendicular to the longer leg, of the other. Now it is not hard to see, as a result of these parallel and perpendicularisms, that the other triangle "cuts off" at each vertex of ABC\triangle A B C a smaller, similar right triangle. If we compute the dimensions of these smaller triangles, we find that they are as follows: 9-12-15 at A,6810A, 6-8-10 at BB, and 3-4-5 at CC. The total area chopped off of ABC\triangle A B C is thus 9122+682+342=54+24+6=84\frac{9 \cdot 12}{2}+\frac{6 \cdot 8}{2}+\frac{3 \cdot 4}{2}=54+24+6=84 The area of ABC\triangle A B C is 1824/2=21618 \cdot 24 / 2=216. The area of the region common to both the original triangles is thus 21684=132216-84=132.

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