2002 AIME I Problems/Problem 13
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[hide]Problem
In triangle the medians and have lengths and , respectively, and . Extend to intersect the circumcircle of at . The area of triangle is , where and are positive integers and is not divisible by the square of any prime. Find .
Solution 1
Applying Stewart's Theorem to medians , we have:
Substituting the first equation into the second and simplification yields .
By the Power of a Point Theorem on , we get . The Law of Cosines on gives
Hence . Because have the same height and equal bases, they have the same area, and , and the answer is .
Solution 2
Let and intersect at . Since medians split one another in a 2:1 ratio, we have
This gives isosceles and thus an easy area calculation. After extending the altitude to and using the fact that it is also a median, we find
Using Power of a Point, we have
By Same Height Different Base,
Solving gives
and
Thus, our answer is .
Short Solution: Smart Similarity
Use the same diagram as in Solution 1. Call the centroid . It should be clear that , and likewise , . Then, . Power of a Point on gives , and the area of is , which is twice the area of or (they have the same area because of equal base and height), giving for an answer of .
Solution 4 (You've Forgotten Power of a Point Exists)
Note that, as above, it is quite easy to get that (equate Heron's and to find this). Now note that because they are vertical angles, , and (the latter two are derived from the inscribed angle theorem). Therefore ~ and so and so the area of is giving us as our answer. (One may just get the area via triangle similarity too--this is if you are tired by the end of test and just want to bash some stuff out--it may also serve as a useful check).
~Dhillonr25
Solution 5 (Barycentric Coordinates)
Apply barycentric coordinates on . We know that . We can now get the displacement vectors and . Now, applying the distance formula and simplifying gives us the two equations Substituting and solving with algebra now gives . Now we can find . Note that can be parameterized as , so plugging into the circumcircle equation and solving for gives so . Plugging in for gives us . Thus, by the area formula, we haveBy Heron's Formula, we have which immediately gives from our ratio, extracting .
-Taco12
Solution 6 (Law of Cosines + Stewarts)
Since is the median, let . Since is a median, . Applying Power of a Point with respect to point , we see that . Applying Stewart's Theorem on triangles and , we get that and . The area of is simply . We know . Also, we know that . Then, applying Law of Cosines on triangle , we get that which means that . Then, applying Stewart's Theorem on triangle with cevian allows us to receive that . Now, plugging into our earlier area formula, we receive Therefore, the desired answer is .
~SirAppel
See also
2002 AIME I (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | ||
Preceded by Problem 12 |
Followed by Problem 14 | |
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 | ||
All AIME Problems and Solutions |
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