Maths Olympiad Prep

Track / Stage 5 / 76 of 400 #676 of 1964

Problem 676

AIME late
Geometry Difficulty 5.2 Find the answer

Ex. 129. In an integer-sided triangle, two sides are equal to 10. Find the third side, given that the radius of the inscribed circle is an integer.

A number or a short expression. Spacing, $ signs and \frac vs / are all fine.

Official solution

Ex. 129. Answer: 12. Solution. Let the third side be denoted by aa, and the angle subtending it by α\alpha. Then sinα=10+10+a1010r\sin \alpha=\frac{10+10+a}{10 \cdot 10} \cdot r. At the same time, 1a19r41 \leq a \leq 19 \Rightarrow r \leq 4. If sinα=1\sin \alpha=1, then x=5,r=4x=5, r=4, but a triangle with such data does not exist. According to the result of Ex. 124, sinα=mn\sin \alpha=\frac{m}{n}, where nn is either 5 or 25. In the first case, either sinα=35\sin \alpha=\frac{3}{5} or sinα=45\sin \alpha=\frac{4}{5}. In both cases, a triangle with such data does not exist. If n=25n=25, then sinα=725\sin \alpha=\frac{7}{25} or 2425\frac{24}{25}. After verification, we get a=12,r=3a=12, r=3.

Source: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic, difficulty and ordering added by this site.