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Geometry Difficulty 4.9 AIME Find the answer

A sphere is centered at a point with integer coordinates and passes through the three points (2,0,0)(2,0,0), (0,4,0),(0,0,6)(0,4,0),(0,0,6), but not the origin (0,0,0)(0,0,0). If rr is the smallest possible radius of the sphere, compute r2r^{2}.

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

Solution

Let (x,y,z)(x, y, z) be the center of the sphere. By the given condition, we have (x2)2+y2+z2=x2+(y4)2+z2=x2+y2+(z6)2(x-2)^{2}+y^{2}+z^{2}=x^{2}+(y-4)^{2}+z^{2}=x^{2}+y^{2}+(z-6)^{2} Subtracting x2+y2+z2x^{2}+y^{2}+z^{2} yields x2(x2)2=y2(y4)2=z2(z6)2x^{2}-(x-2)^{2}=y^{2}-(y-4)^{2}=z^{2}-(z-6)^{2} or 4(x1)=8(y2)=12(z3)4(x-1)=8(y-2)=12(z-3) Therefore (x1,y2,z3)(x-1, y-2, z-3) must be (6t,3t,2t)(6 t, 3 t, 2 t) for some integer tt. Checking small values of tt yields that the possibilities for (x,y,z)(x, y, z) closest to (2,0,0)(2,0,0) are (5,1,1),(1,2,3)(-5,-1,1),(1,2,3), and (7,5,5)(7,5,5). The second yields a sphere that passes through the origin and is thus forbidden. The other two yield r2=51r^{2}=51 and r2=75r^{2}=75, so 51 is the answer.

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