2024 AIME II Problem 15
Below is the professionally curated solution for Problem 15 of the 2024 AIME II, from LIVE by Po-Shen Loh. You can also try the full timed exam, view all 2024 AIME II solutions, or check the answer key.
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Difficulty rating: 3500
15.
Find the number of rectangles that can be formed inside a fixed regular dodecagon (-gon) where each side of the rectangle lies on either a side or a diagonal of the dodecagon. The diagram below shows three of those rectangles.
Solution:
Put the vertices at angles on a unit circle. The chord joining vertices and has direction so chords come in directions spaced apart, and a rectangle uses two chords from each of two perpendicular directions. The six perpendicular direction pairs split into two kinds, three of each, by rotation. When is even, a family of parallel chords has members, at distances from the center with half-lengths respectively; when is odd, a family has members, at distances with half-lengths
A corner is the intersection of one chord from each direction, and its offset along a chord equals the other chord's distance from the center. Since half-lengths shrink as distance grows, the four corners lie on all four chord segments exactly when, writing for the larger distances of the two chosen pairs, each is at most the half-length of the other pair's farther chord. For the -chord families: pairs with (there are ) have half-length bound and pairs with (there are ) have bound the valid combinations give rectangles. For the -chord families: there are pairs with and the valid combinations are both orders of and and giving
Each kind of direction pair occurs three times, so the total is
Problem 15 in Other Years
1997 AIME · 1998 AIME · 1999 AIME · 2000 AIME I · 2000 AIME II · 2001 AIME I · 2001 AIME II · 2002 AIME I · 2002 AIME II · 2003 AIME I · 2003 AIME II · 2004 AIME I · 2004 AIME II · 2005 AIME I · 2005 AIME II · 2006 AIME I · 2006 AIME II · 2007 AIME I · 2007 AIME II · 2008 AIME I · 2008 AIME II · 2009 AIME I · 2009 AIME II · 2010 AIME I · 2010 AIME II · 2011 AIME I · 2011 AIME II · 2012 AIME I · 2012 AIME II · 2013 AIME I · 2013 AIME II · 2014 AIME I · 2014 AIME II · 2015 AIME I · 2015 AIME II · 2016 AIME I · 2016 AIME II · 2017 AIME I · 2017 AIME II · 2018 AIME I · 2018 AIME II · 2019 AIME I · 2019 AIME II · 2020 AIME I · 2020 AIME II · 2021 AIME I · 2021 AIME II · 2022 AIME I · 2022 AIME II · 2023 AIME I · 2023 AIME II · 2024 AIME I · 2025 AIME I · 2025 AIME II · 2026 AIME I · 2026 AIME II