2024 AIME II Problem 15

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Concepts:regular polygoncounting shapes in figurescasework

Difficulty rating: 3500

15.

Find the number of rectangles that can be formed inside a fixed regular dodecagon (1212-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 30k30k^\circ on a unit circle. The chord joining vertices ii and jj has direction 15(i+j)+90,15(i+j)^\circ + 90^\circ, so chords come in 1212 directions spaced 1515^\circ 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 i+ji + j is even, a family of parallel chords has 55 members, at distances 0,±12,±320, \pm\frac{1}{2}, \pm\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2} from the center with half-lengths 1,32,121, \frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}, \frac{1}{2} respectively; when i+ji + j is odd, a family has 66 members, at distances ±cos75,±cos45,±cos15\pm\cos 75^\circ, \pm\cos 45^\circ, \pm\cos 15^\circ with half-lengths sin75,sin45,sin15.\sin 75^\circ, \sin 45^\circ, \sin 15^\circ.

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 D1,D2D_1, D_2 for the larger distances of the two chosen pairs, each DD is at most the half-length of the other pair's farther chord. For the 55-chord families: pairs with D=32D = \frac{\sqrt{3}}{2} (there are 77) have half-length bound 12,\frac{1}{2}, and pairs with D=12D = \frac{1}{2} (there are 33) have bound 32;\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}; the valid combinations give 73+37+33=517 \cdot 3 + 3 \cdot 7 + 3 \cdot 3 = 51 rectangles. For the 66-chord families: there are 1,5,91, 5, 9 pairs with D=cos75,cos45,cos15,D = \cos 75^\circ, \cos 45^\circ, \cos 15^\circ, and the valid combinations are (cos75,cos75),(\cos 75^\circ, \cos 75^\circ), both orders of (cos75,cos45)(\cos 75^\circ, \cos 45^\circ) and (cos75,cos15),(\cos 75^\circ, \cos 15^\circ), and (cos45,cos45),(\cos 45^\circ, \cos 45^\circ), giving 1+5+5+9+9+25=54.1 + 5 + 5 + 9 + 9 + 25 = 54.

Each kind of direction pair occurs three times, so the total is 3(51+54)=315.3(51 + 54) = 315.

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