2023 AIME I Problems/Problem 5

Problem (not official; when the official problem statement comes out, please update this page; to ensure credibility until the official problem statement comes out, please add an O if you believe this is correct and add an X if you believe this is incorrect):

Let there be a circle circumscribing a square ABCD, and let P be a point on the circle. PA*PC = 56, PB*PD = 90. What is the area of the square?

Solution

We may assume that $P$ is between $B$ and $C$ . Let $PA = a$ , $PB = b$ , $PC = C$ , $PD = d$ , and $AB = s$ . We have $a^2 + c^2 = AC^2 = 2s^2$ , because $AC$ is a diagonal. Similarly, $b^2 + d^2 = 2s^2$ . Therefore, $(a+c)^2 = a^2 + c^2 + 2ac = 2s^2 + 2(56) = 2s^2 + 112$ . Similarly, $(b+d)^2 = 2s^2 + 180$ .

By Ptolemy's Theorem on $PCDA$ , $as + cs = ds\sqrt{2}$ , and therefore $a + c = d\sqrt{2}$ . By Ptolemy's on $PBAD$ , $bs + ds = as\sqrt{2}$ , and therefore $b + d = a\sqrt{2}$ . By squaring both equations, we obtain

$2d^2 = (a+c)^2 = 2s^2 + 112$ $2a^2 = (b+d)^2 = 2s^2 + 180.$

Thus, $a^2 = s^2 + 90$ , and $d^2 = s^2 + 56$ . Plugging these values into $a^2 + c^2 = b^2 + d^2 = 2s^2$ , we obtain $c^2 = s^2 - 90$ , and $b^2 = s^2 - 56$ . Now, we can solve using $a$ and $c$ (though using $b$ and $d$ yields the same solution for $s$ ).