2024 AIME I Problem 11
Below is the professionally curated solution for Problem 11 of the 2024 AIME I, from LIVE by Po-Shen Loh. You can also try the full timed exam, view all 2024 AIME I solutions, or check the answer key.
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Difficulty rating: 2990
11.
Each vertex of a regular octagon is independently colored either red or blue with equal probability. The probability that the octagon can then be rotated so that all of the blue vertices end up at positions where there had been red vertices is where and are relatively prime positive integers. Find
Solution:
Label the vertices and let be the blue set, Rotation by works exactly when Since must fit inside the red positions, Summing over all eight rotations counts all pairs once (via ), a total of and the term contributes So for the seven nonzero rotations share only overlaps, and some rotation has none: all colorings with succeed.
For disjointness forces to be exactly the complement of If is odd, the cycle visits all vertices and must alternate between and its complement, so is the evens or the odds: sets. If then meets each of the -cycles and in an antipodal pair: sets, such as If then contains exactly one of each pair sets. The first two families contain both members of some antipodal pair while the third never does, and the evens/odds take both their antipodal pairs from one -cycle, so the three families are disjoint: sets.
In total of the colorings work, so the probability is and
Problem 11 in Other Years
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