A walk on Muhammad's plot

Geometry Level 4

A man owns a rectangular plot of land with corners labeled A B C D ABCD , with A B = 5 AB=5 meters and B C = 12 BC=12 meters. He walks in a very peculiar fashion. He starts at A A and walks to C C . Then, he walks to the midpoint of side A D AD (labeled A 1 A_1 ). Then, he walks to the midpoint of side C D CD (labeled C 1 C_1 ), and then the midpoint of A 1 D A_1D (labeled A 2 A_2 ). He continues in this fashion indefinitely. The total length of his path is of the form a + b c a + b\sqrt{c} , where a , b a,b and c c are positive integers, and c c is not divisible by the square of any prime. What is the value of a + b + c a+b+c ?

This problem is posed by Muhammad A.


The answer is 89.

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1 solution

The length of AC is 13 (by the Pythagorean theorem). The length of C A 1 C{ A }_{ 1 } is 61 \sqrt { 61 } . The following lengths are 13/2, 61 2 \frac { \sqrt { 61 } }{ 2 } , and so on, with each term exactly 1/2 of the term two before it, starting with the 3rd term

Thus, we are calculating two infinite series with a 1 { a }_{ 1 } equal to 13 and 61 \sqrt { 61 } , respectively and common ratio 1/2 for each. The answer is equal to 26 + 2 61 2\sqrt { 61 } and a + b + c = 26 + 2 + 61 = 89 \boxed{89}

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