2023 AIME I Problems/Problem 12
Problem
Let
be an equilateral triangle with side length
Points
and
lie on
and
respectively, with
and
Point
inside
has the property that
Find
Solution
Denote
.
In
, we have
.
Thus,
Taking the real and imaginary parts, we get
In
, analogous to the analysis of
above, we get
Taking
, we get
Taking
, we get
Taking
, we get
Therefore,
Therefore,
.
~Steven Chen (Professor Chen Education Palace, www.professorchenedu.com)
Solution 2 (no trig)
Drop the perpendiculars from
to
,
,
, and call them
and
respectively. This gives us three similar right triangles
,
, and
The sum of the perpendiculars to a point
within an equilateral triangle is always constant, so we have that
The sum of the lengths of the alternating segments split by the perpendiculars from a point
within an equilateral triangle is always equal to half the perimeter, so
which means that
Finally,
Thus,
~anon
Solution 3 (LOC)
This solution is heavily inspired by AIME 1999 Problem 14 Solution 2 (a similar question)
Draw line segments from
to points
,
, and
. And label the angle measure of
,
, and
to be
Using Law of Cosines (note that
)
We can perform this operation: (1) - (2) + (3) - (4) + (5) - (6)
Leaving us with (after combining and simplifying)
Therefore, we want to solve for
Notice that
We can use Law of Cosines again to solve for the sides of
, which have side lengths of
,
, and
, and area
.
Label the lengths of
,
, and
to be
,
, and
.
Therefore, using the
area formula,
In addition, we know that
By using Law of Cosines for
,
, and
respectively
Because we want
, which is
, we see that
So plugging the results back into the equation before, we get
Giving us
~Danielzh
See also
| 2023 AIME I (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | ||
| Preceded by Problem 11 |
Followed by Problem 13 | |
| 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 | ||
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