Difference between revisions of "2009 AIME II Problems/Problem 15"
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<cmath>\sin(t' + a)=\sin(t')\cos(a) + \cos(t')\sin(a) = \frac{28\sqrt{6} - \sqrt{2}}{70}</cmath>, | <cmath>\sin(t' + a)=\sin(t')\cos(a) + \cos(t')\sin(a) = \frac{28\sqrt{6} - \sqrt{2}}{70}</cmath>, | ||
− | so the maximum length of <math>XY</math> is <math>\sin(a)\times\frac{\sin(t')}{\sin(t' + a) + \cos(a)} = 7 - 4\sqrt | + | so the maximum length of <math>XY</math> is <math>\sin(a)\times\frac{\sin(t')}{\sin(t' + a) + \cos(a)} = 7 - 4\sqrt{3}</math>, and the answer is <math>7 + 4 + 3 = \boxed{014}</math>. |
Revision as of 04:19, 26 February 2012
Problem
Let be a diameter of a circle with diameter 1. Let
and
be points on one of the semicircular arcs determined by
such that
is the midpoint of the semicircle and
. Point
lies on the other semicircular arc. Let
be the length of the line segment whose endpoints are the intersections of diameter
with chords
and
. The largest possible value of
can be written in the form
, where
and
are positive integers and
is not divisible by the square of any prime. Find
.
Solution
(For some reason, I can't submit LaTeX for this page.)
Let be the center of the circle. Define
,
, and let
and
intersect
at points
and
, respectively. We will express the length of
as a function of
and maximize that function in the interval
.
Let be the foot of the perpendicular from
to
. We compute
as follows.
(a) By the Extended Law of Sines in triangle , we have
(b) Note that and
. Since
and
are similar right triangles, we have
, and hence,
(c) We have and
, and hence by the Law of Sines,
(d) Multiplying (a), (b), and (c), we have
,
which is a function of (and the constant
). Differentiating this with respect to
yields
,
and the numerator of this is
,
which vanishes when . Therefore, the length of
is maximized when
, where
is the value in
that satisfies
.
Note that
,
so . We compute
,
so the maximum length of is
, and the answer is
.