2010 AMC 12A Problems/Problem 25
Problem
Two quadrilaterals are considered the same if one can be obtained from the other by a rotation and a translation. How many different convex cyclic quadrilaterals are there with integer sides and perimeter equal to 32?
Solution 1
It should first be noted that given any quadrilateral of fixed side lengths, there is exactly one way to manipulate the angles so that the quadrilateral becomes cyclic.
Proof. Given a quadrilateral where all sides are fixed (in a certain order), we can construct the diagonal
. When
is the minimum allowed by the triangle inequality, one of the angles
or
will be degenerate and measure
, so opposite angles will sum to less than
. When
is the maximum allowed, one of the angles will be degenerate and measure
, so opposite angles will sum to more than
. Thus, since the sum of opposite angles increases continuously as
is lengthened from the minimum to the maximum values, there is a unique value of
somewhere in the middle such that the sum of opposite angles is exactly
.
Denote ,
,
, and
as the integer side lengths of the quadrilateral. Without loss of generality, let
.
Since , the Triangle Inequality implies that
.
We will now split into cases.
Case :
(
side lengths are equal)
Clearly there is only way to select the side lengths
, and no matter how the sides are rearranged only
unique quadrilateral can be formed.
Case :
or
(
side lengths are equal)
If side lengths are equal, then each of those side lengths can only be integers from
to
except for
(because that is counted in the first case). Obviously there is still only
unique quadrilateral that can be formed from one set of side lengths, resulting in a total of
quadrilaterals.
Case :
(
pairs of side lengths are equal)
and
can be any integer from
to
, and likewise
and
can be any integer from
to
. However, a single set of side lengths can form
different cyclic quadrilaterals (a rectangle and a kite), so the total number of quadrilaterals for this case is
.
Case :
or
or
(
side lengths are equal)
If the equal side lengths are each
, then the other
sides must each be
, which we have already counted in an earlier case. If the equal side lengths are each
, there is
possible set of side lengths. Likewise, for side lengths of
there are
sets. Continuing this pattern, we find a total of
sets of side lengths. (Be VERY careful when adding up the total for this case!) For each set of side lengths, there are
possible quadrilaterals that can be formed, so the total number of quadrilaterals for this case is
.
Case :
(no side lengths are equal)
Using the same counting principles starting from
and eventually reaching
, we find that the total number of possible side lengths is
. There are
ways to arrange the
side lengths, but there is only
unique quadrilateral for
rotations, so the number of quadrilaterals for each set of side lengths is
. The total number of quadrilaterals is
.
And so, the total number of quadrilaterals that can be made is .
Solution 2
As with solution we would like to note that given any quadrilateral we can change its angles to make a cyclic one.
Let be the sides of the quadrilateral.
There are ways to partition
. However, some of these will not be quadrilaterals since they would have one side bigger than the sum of the other three. This occurs when
. For
,
. There are
ways to partition
. Since
could be any of the four sides, we have counted
degenerate quadrilaterals. Similarly, there are
,
for other values of
. Thus, there are
non-degenerate partitions of
by the hockey stick theorem. We then account for symmetry. If all sides are congruent (meaning the quadrilateral is a square), the quadrilateral will be counted once. If the quadrilateral is a rectangle (and not a square), it will be counted twice. In all other cases, it will be counted 4 times. Since there is
square case, and
rectangle cases, there are
quadrilaterals counted 4 times. Thus there are
total quadrilaterals.
Solution 3 (Burnside)
As with solution we find that there are
ways to form a quadrilateral if we don't account for rotations. We now apply Burnside's_Lemma. There are four types of actions in the group acting on the set of quadrilaterals. We will consider each individually:
Identity: maps a quadrilateral with sides
in that order to
. Obviously all members of the set of quadrilaterals are fixed points, for a total of
.
Rotation by one: maps a quadrilateral from
to
. For this to have a fixed point we need
, so the only quadrilateral that is a fixed point is the square with side length
, for a total of
.
Rotation by two: maps a quadrilateral from
to
. For this to be a fixed point we need
and
. Thus the quadrilateral is of the form
—a rectangle. We can count that there are
rectangle cases, namely
.
Roration by three: maps a quadrilateral from
to
. Similarly to the rotation by one case, there is one fixed point here.
Summing up, we get that the total number of groups is
. Since there are
members of the group our final answer is
total orbits of the set of quadrilaterals, so the answer is
.
See also
2010 AMC 12A (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | |
Preceded by Problem 24 |
Followed by Last Problem |
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19 • 20 • 21 • 22 • 23 • 24 • 25 | |
All AMC 12 Problems and Solutions |
The problems on this page are copyrighted by the Mathematical Association of America's American Mathematics Competitions.