2008 AIME I Problem 2

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2.

Square AIMEAIME has sides of length 1010 units. Isosceles triangle GEMGEM has base EM,\overline{EM}, and the area common to triangle GEMGEM and square AIMEAIME is 8080 square units. Find the length of the altitude to EM\overline{EM} in GEM.\triangle GEM.

Answer: 25
Concepts:similarityarea decompositiontriangle area
Difficulty rating: 2110
Solution:

Here EM\overline{EM} is a side of the square. Let hh be the altitude of triangle GEM.GEM. If h10,h \le 10, the triangle would lie entirely inside the square, and its area 1210h=80\frac{1}{2} \cdot 10 \cdot h = 80 would force h=16,h = 16, a contradiction. So h>10h \gt 10 and the apex GG lies outside the square; the opposite side AI\overline{AI} cuts off a smaller triangle similar to GEMGEM with height h10h - 10 and base 10(h10)h.\frac{10(h - 10)}{h}.

The common region is triangle GEMGEM minus that small triangle: 80=5h1210(h10)h(h10)=5h5(h10)2h. \begin{aligned} 80 &= 5h \\ &\quad {}- \frac{1}{2} \cdot \frac{10(h - 10)}{h} \\ &\qquad {}\cdot (h - 10) \\ &= 5h - \frac{5(h - 10)^2}{h}. \end{aligned} Multiplying by hh gives 80h=5h25(h10)280h = 5h^2 - 5(h - 10)^2 =5(20h100)= 5(20h - 100) =100h500,= 100h - 500, so 20h=50020h = 500 and h=25.h = 25.

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