Problem

What is the volume of the region in three-dimensional space defined by the inequalities $|x|+|y|+|z|\le1$ and $|x|+|y|+|z-1|\le1$

$\textbf{(A)}\ \frac{1}{6}\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ \frac{1}{4}\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ \frac{1}{3}\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ \frac{1}{2}\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 1$

Solution

The first inequality refers to the interior of a regular octahedron with top and bottom vertices $(0,0,1),\ (0,0,-1)$ . Its volume is $8\cdot\tfrac16=\tfrac43$ . The second inequality describes an identical shape, shifted $+1$ upwards along the $Z$ axis. The intersection will be a similar octahedron, linearly scaled down by half. Thus the volume of the intersection is one-eighth of the volume of the first octahedron, giving an answer of $\textbf{(A) }\tfrac16$ .

2016 AMC 12B (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 22	Followed by Problem 24
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2016 AMC 12B Problems/Problem 23

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