Problems
You meet a group of \(n\) aliens. The first alien asks “is at least one of us a Goop?", the second alien asks “are at least two of us Goops?", the third asks “are at least three of us Goops?" and so on until the final one says “are at least \(n\) of us Goops?".
How many Goops are there?
Suppose you only knew the formula of a triangle for right-angled triangles. That is, if a base with length \(b\) and a height \(h\) of a triangle meet at a right angle, you know that the area of the triangle is \(\frac{1}{2}bh\). Can you prove the usual area formula for a general triangle?
Today we will solve some problems about finding areas of geometric figures. You only need to know how to calculate the area of a rectangle, a triangle and a circle to be able to solve every problem in this set. Here is a brief description of the area formula for each shape.
We start with rectangles because they are easy. In the picture below, one way to find the area of the rectangle is to multiple the length of the side \(AB\) by the length of the side \(AD\).
Next we consider the area of a triangle. In general, the area of a triangle is given by \(\frac{1}{2}bh\), where \(b\) is the length of a chosen base and \(h\) is the height (the length of the altitude corresponding to that base). Finding a base and a corresponding altitude is usually straightforward. However, it can be a bit tricky if the altitude lies outside the triangle. See the picture below for one such case. The segment \(AB\) is the base and \(CD\) is the altitude. If the area formula seems hard to believe in this case, please have a look at problem 6.
At last, we come to the area of a circle. If a circle has radius \(r\), its area is \(\pi r^2\). A fully rigorous proof requires calculus! The number \(\pi\) is approximately 3.14159 to five decimal points.
There is a pair of parallel lines. The point \(A\) and \(B\) lie on one of the lines. The point \(C\) and \(D\) lies on the other line. We can form triangles \(\triangle ABC\) and \(\triangle ABD\). Prove that the areas of triangles \(\triangle ABC\) and \(\triangle ABD\) are equal.
The pigeonhole principle is often called “Dirichlet’s box principle". Dirichlet made good use of this tool to show a fundamental result in Diophantine approximation, now commonly known as the Dirichlet Approximation Theorem. You will now prove it yourself!
Suppose \(\alpha\) is any irrational real number and \(N\geq 1\) is any positive integer. Show that there is an integer \(1\leq q\leq N\) and an integer \(p\) such that \[\left| q \alpha - p \right| < \frac{1}{N}.\]
Find the mistake in the sequence of equalities: \(-1=(-1)^{\frac{2}{2}}=((-1)^2)^{\frac{1}{2}}=1^{\frac{1}{2}}=1\).
A circle with center \(A\) is inscribed into a square \(CDFE\). A line \(GH\) intersects the sides \(CD\) and \(CE\) of the square and is tangent to the circle at the point \(I\). Find the perimeter of the triangle \(CHG\) (the sum of lengths of all the sides) if the side of the square is \(10\)cm.
The triangle visible in the picture is equilateral. The hexagon inside is a regular hexagon. If the area of the whole big triangle is \(18\), find the area of the small blue triangle.
In a pentagon \(ABCDE\), diagonal \(AD\) is parallel to the side \(BC\) and the diagonal \(CE\) is parallel to the side \(AB\). Show that the areas of the triangles \(\triangle ABE\) and \(\triangle BCD\) are the same.
