2008 AIME II Problems/Problem 9
Problem
A particle is located on the coordinate plane at . Define a move for the particle as a counterclockwise rotation of radians about the origin followed by a translation of units in the positive -direction. Given that the particle's position after moves is , find the greatest integer less than or equal to .
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[hide]Solutions
Solution 1
Let be the position of the particle on the -plane, be the length where is the origin, and be the inclination of OP to the x-axis. If is the position of the particle after a move from , then we have two equations for and : . Let be the position of the particle after the nth move, where and . Then , . This implies , . Substituting and , we have and again for the first time. Thus, and . Hence, the final answer is
If you're curious, the points do eventually form an octagon and repeat. Seems counterintuitive, but believe it or not, it happens.
https://www.desmos.com/calculator/febtiheosz
Solution 2
Let the particle's position be represented by a complex number. Recall that multiplying a number by cis rotates the object in the complex plane by counterclockwise. In this case, we use . Therefore, applying the rotation and shifting the coordinates by 10 in the positive x direction in the complex plane results to
where a is cis. By De-Moivre's theorem, =cis. Therefore,
Furthermore, . Thus, the final answer is
Unclear/Unfinished Solution
Each move has two parts, a rotation and a translation. But consider what happens to a translation after four rotations: it is cancelled out by another translation in the opposite direction. Thus the particle repeats position every 8 moves. So we only have to move backwards two steps from move 152 = 8(19).
Solution 3
Let . We assume that the rotation matrix here. Then we have
This simplifies to
Since , so we have , giving . The answer is yet .
See also
2008 AIME II (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | ||
Preceded by Problem 8 |
Followed by Problem 10 | |
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 | ||
All AIME Problems and Solutions |
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