2016 AIME I Problems/Problem 14

Problem

Centered at each lattice point in the coordinate plane are a circle radius $\frac{1}{10}$ and a square with sides of length $\frac{1}{5}$ whose sides are parallel to the coordinate axes. The line segment from $(0,0)$ to $(1001, 429)$ intersects $m$ of the squares and $n$ of the circles. Find $m + n$ .

Solution

First note that $1001 = 143 \cdot 7$ and $429 = 143 \cdot 3$ so every point of the form $(7k, 3k)$ is on the line. Then consider the line $l$ from $(7k, 3k)$ to $(7(k + 1), 3(k + 1))$ . Translate the line $l$ so that $(7k, 3k)$ is now the origin. There is one square and one circle that intersect the line around $(0,0)$ . Then the points on $l$ with an integral $x$ -coordinate are, since $l$ has the equation $y = \frac{3x}{7}$ :

$(0,0), (1, \frac{3}{7}), (2, \frac{6}{7}), (3, 1 + \frac{2}{7}), (4, 1 + \frac{5}{7}), (5, 2 + \frac{1}{7}), (6, 2 + \frac{4}{7}), (7,3).$

We claim that the lower right vertex of the square centered at $(2,1)$ lies on $l$ . Since the square has side length $\frac{1}{5}$ , the lower right vertex of this square has coordinates $(2 + \frac{1}{10}, 1 - \frac{1}{10}) = (\frac{21}{10}, \frac{9}{10})$ . Because $\frac{9}{10} = \frac{3}{7} \cdot \frac{21}{10}$ , $(\frac{21}{10}, \frac{9}{10})$ lies on $l$ . Since the circle centered at $(2,1)$ is contained inside the square, this circle does not intersect $l$ . Similarly the upper left vertex of the square centered at $(5,2)$ is on $l$ . Since every other point listed above is farther away from a lattice point (excluding (0,0) and (7,3)) and there are two squares with centers strictly between $(0,0)$ and $(7,3)$ that intersect $l$ . Since there are $\frac{1001}{7} = \frac{429}{3} = 143$ segments from $(7k, 3k)$ to $(7(k + 1), 3(k + 1))$ , the above count is yields $143 \cdot 2 = 286$ squares. Since every lattice point on $l$ is of the form $(3k, 7k)$ where $0 \le k \le 143$ , there are $144$ lattice points on $l$ . Centered at each lattice point, there is one square and one circle, hence this counts $288$ squares and circles. Thus $m + n = 286 + 288 = \boxed{574}$ .

(Solution by gundraja) $[asy]size(12cm);draw((0,0)--(7,3));draw(box((0,0),(7,3)),dotted); for(int i=0;i<8;++i)for(int j=0;j<4;++j){dot((i,j),linewidth(1));draw(box((i-.1,j-.1),(i+.1,j+.1)),linewidth(.5));draw(circle((i,j),.1),linewidth(.5));} [/asy]$

2016 AIME I (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 13	Followed by Problem 15
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2016 AIME I Problems/Problem 14

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