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Geometry Difficulty 5.4 AIME, harder Find the answer

Find the smallest possible area of an ellipse passing through (2,0),(0,3),(0,7)(2,0),(0,3),(0,7), and (6,0)(6,0).

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

Solution

Let Γ\Gamma be an ellipse passing through A=(2,0),B=(0,3),C=(0,7),D=(6,0)A=(2,0), B=(0,3), C=(0,7), D=(6,0), and let P=(0,0)P=(0,0) be the intersection of ADA D and BCB C.  Area of Γ Area of ABCD\frac{\text { Area of } \Gamma}{\text { Area of } A B C D} is unchanged under an affine transformation, so we just have to minimize this quantity over situations where Γ\Gamma is a circle and PAPD=13\frac{P A}{P D}=\frac{1}{3} and PBBC=37\frac{P B}{B C}=\frac{3}{7}. In fact, we may assume that PA=7,PB=3,PC=7,PD=37P A=\sqrt{7}, P B=3, P C=7, P D=3 \sqrt{7}. If P=θ\angle P=\theta, then we can compute lengths to get r= Area of Γ Area of ABCD=π32207cosθ+21cos2θ97sin3θ r=\frac{\text { Area of } \Gamma}{\text { Area of } A B C D}=\pi \frac{32-20 \sqrt{7} \cos \theta+21 \cos ^{2} \theta}{9 \sqrt{7} \cdot \sin ^{3} \theta} Let x=cosθx=\cos \theta. Then if we treat rr as a function of xx, 0=rr=3x1x2+42x2073220x7+21x2 0=\frac{r^{\prime}}{r}=\frac{3 x}{1-x^{2}}+\frac{42 x-20 \sqrt{7}}{32-20 x \sqrt{7}+21 x^{2}} which means that 21x340x7+138x207=021 x^{3}-40 x \sqrt{7}+138 x-20 \sqrt{7}=0. Letting y=x7y=x \sqrt{7} gives 0=3y340y2+138y140=(y2)(3y234y+70) 0=3 y^{3}-40 y^{2}+138 y-140=(y-2)\left(3 y^{2}-34 y+70\right) The other quadratic has roots that are greater than 7\sqrt{7}, which means that the minimum ratio is attained when cosθ=x=y7=27\cos \theta=x=\frac{y}{\sqrt{7}}=\frac{2}{\sqrt{7}}. Plugging that back in gives that the optimum  Area of Γ Area of ABCD\frac{\text { Area of } \Gamma}{\text { Area of } A B C D} is 28π381\frac{28 \pi \sqrt{3}}{81}, so putting this back into the original configuration gives Area of Γ56π39\Gamma \geq \frac{56 \pi \sqrt{3}}{9}. If you want to check on Geogebra, this minimum occurs when the center of Γ\Gamma is \left(\frac{8}{3}, \frac{7}{3}\right).

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Source: Omni-MATH, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.