2016 AMC 12A Problems/Problem 23
Contents
Problem
Three numbers in the interval are chosen independently and at random. What is the probability that the chosen numbers are the side lengths of a triangle with positive area?
Solution
Solution 1: Super WLOG
WLOG assume is the largest. Then,
, meaning the solution is
, as shown in the graph below.
Solution 2: Conditional Probability
WLOG, let the largest of the three numbers drawn be . Then the other two numbers are drawn uniformly and independently from the interval
. The probability that their sum is greater than
is
Solution 3: Calculus
When , consider two cases:
1) , then
2), then
is the same. Thus the answer is
.
Solution 4: Geometry
The probability of this occurring is the volume of the corresponding region within a cube, where each point
corresponds to a choice of values for each of
and
. The region where, WLOG, side
is too long,
, is a pyramid with a base of area
and height
, so its volume is
. Accounting for the corresponding cases in
and
multiplies our answer by
, so we have excluded a total volume of
from the space of possible probabilities. Subtracting this from
leaves us with a final answer of
.
Solution 5: More Calculus
The probability of this occurring is the volume of the corresponding region within a cube, where each point
corresponds to a choice of values for each of
and
. We take a horizontal cross section of the cube, essentially picking a value for z. The area where the triangle inequality will not hold is when
, which has area
or when
or
, which have an area of
Integrating this expression from 0 to 1 in the form
Solution 5.1 (better explanation)
This problem is going to require some geometric probability, so let's dive right in.
Take three integers ,
, and
. Then for the triangle inequality to hold, the following
inequalities must be true
Now, it would be really easy if these equations only had two variables instead of , because then we could graph it in a
-dimensional plane instead of a
-dimensional cube. So, we assume
is a constant. We will deal with it later.
Now, since we are graphing, we should probably write these equations in terms of so they are in slope-intercept form and are easier to graph.
Now, note that all solutions are in a
square in the
-plane because
,
.
I recommend drawing the following figure to get an idea of what is going on.
The first line is a line with a negative slope that cuts off a triangle with side length
of the bottom left corner of the square. The second line is a line with a positive slope that cuts off a
triangle with side length
off the top left corner of the square. The third line also has a positive slope and cuts a
triangle with side length
off the bottom right corner of the square.
Note: All triangles are because the lines have slopes of
or
.
Using the and
signs in the lines, we see that the area that satisfies all three inequalities is the area not enclosed in the three triangles. So, our plan of attack will be to
Find the area of the triangles -> Subtract that from the area of the square -> Use probability to get the answer.
Except, now, we have one problem. is still a variable. But, we want
to be a constant. Well, what if we just took the area over every possible value of
? Well, that would be a bit hard, if not impossible to do by hand, but there is a handy math tool that will let us do that: the integral!
To find the area of the triangles, our plan of attack will be
Find the area in terms of -> take the integral from
to
of the expression for the area (this will cover every possible value of
The area of the triangles is
.
The integral from to
is
The total area of all the possible unit squares is quite obviously
Thus, the area not enclosed by the triangles is , and the total area of the square is
. Thus, the desired probability is
~Extremelysupercooldude
Solution 6: Geometry in 2-D
WLOG assume that is the largest number and hence the largest side. Then
. We can set up a square that is
by
in the
plane. We are wanting all the points within this square that satisfy
. This happens to be a line dividing the square into 2 equal regions. Thus the answer is
.
[][] diagram for this problem goes here (z by z square)
Solution 7: More WLOG, Complementary Probability
The triangle inequality simplifies to considering only one case: . Consider the complement (the same statement, except with a less than or equal to). Assume (WLOG)
is the largest, so on average
(now equal to becomes a degenerate case with probability
, so we no longer need to consider it). We now want
, so imagine choosing
at once rather than independently. But we know that
is between
and
. The complement is thus:
. But keep in mind that we choose each
and
randomly and independently, so if there are
ways to choose
together, there are
ways to choose them separately, and therefore the complement actually doubles to match each case (a good example of this is to restrict b and c to integers such that if
, then we only count this once, but in reality: we have two cases
, and
; similar reasoning also generalizes to non-integral values). The complement is then actually
. Therefore, our desired probability is given by
Solution 8: 3D geometry
We can draw a 3D space where each coordinate is in the range [0,1]. Drawing the lines and
We have a 3D space that consists of two tetrahedrons. One is a regular tetrahedron with side length
and the other has 3 sides of length
and 3 sides of length
The volume of this region is
. Hence our solution is
Video Solution by Punxsutawney Phil
Video Solution by The Art of Problem Solving
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqRsTNB89ps&list=PLyhPcpM8aMvI7N78mYZyatqveRU30iNcf&index=3
- AMBRIGGS
See Also
2016 AMC 12A (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | |
Preceded by Problem 22 |
Followed by Problem 24 |
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 |
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