2009 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 24
Contents
Problem
Three distinct vertices of a cube are chosen at random. What is the probability that the plane determined by these three vertices contains points inside the cube?
Solution
(Easy)
points determine a plane. therefore
ways exist to choose a plane.
Unfortunately, we overcounted by a factor of four, as each plane determined has vertices on the cube. Therefore, there are
planes.
It is easy to see that all planes are either the cube's faces or pass through the cube. However, there are 6 faces of a cube.
Therefore, there are out of
planes that pass through the cube, making the probability 4/7, and the correct answer is C.
Solution ![$2$](//latex.artofproblemsolving.com/4/1/c/41c544263a265ff15498ee45f7392c5f86c6d151.png)
We will try to use symmetry as much as possible.
Pick the first vertex , its choice clearly does not influence anything.
Pick the second vertex . With probability
vertices
and
have a common edge, with probability
they are in opposite corners of the same face, and with probability
they are in opposite corners of the cube. We will handle each of the cases separately.
In the first case, there are faces that contain the edge
. In each of these faces there are
other vertices. If one of these
vertices is the third vertex
, the entire triangle
will be on a face. On the other hand, if
is one of the two remaining vertices, the triangle will contain points inside the cube. Hence in this case the probability of choosing a good
is
.
In the second case, the triangle will not intersect the cube if point
is one of the two points on the side that contains
. Hence the probability of
intersecting the inside of the cube is
.
In the third case, already the diagonal contains points inside the cube, hence this case will be good regardless of the choice of
.
Summing up all cases, the resulting probability is:
Note: (Cheap solution same approach as solution 1)
This problem can be approached the same way, by picking vertices, but with a much faster and kind of cheap solution: Pick any vertex A and a face it touches. For vertex B, out of the 7 remaining vertices, 4 of them aren't on the same face as the one chosen for vertex A, so vertex C can be placed anywhere and the plane will no matter what be in the cube. Therefore, the probability of choosing a valid vertex B is 4/7.
Solution 2
There are ways to pick three vertices from eight total vertices; this is our denominator. In order to have three points inside the cube, they cannot be on the surface. Thus, we can use complementary probability.
There are to choose three points from the vertices of a single face. Since there are six faces,
.
Thus, the probability of what we don't want is . Using complementary probability,
See Also
2009 AMC 10A (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | ||
Preceded by Problem 23 |
Followed by Problem 25 | |
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