Angles in sequence (2)

Geometry Level 4

A B C \angle ABC is the smallest angle with an integer degree in a cyclic quadrilateral A B C D . ABCD.

The four interior angles (in degrees) are integers that form an arithmetic sequence, but they are not necessarily arranged in clockwise or counterclockwise order.

Find the sum of all possible values of A B C \angle ABC in degrees.


The answer is 1395.

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1 solution

Jordan Cahn
Mar 1, 2018

Since A B C D ABCD is cyclic, its opposite angles are supplementary. Thus m B + m D = m A + m C = 180 m\angle B + m\angle D = m\angle A + m\angle C = 180 . Since B \angle B is the smallest angle, D \angle D must be the largest. WLOG, we'll say m A m C m\angle A \leq m\angle C . Let b = m B b = m\angle B be a (positive) integer. Then m B = b m\angle B = b m A = b + n m\angle A = b + n m C = b + 2 n m\angle C = b + 2n m D = b + 3 n m\angle D = b + 3n

for some positive integer n 0 n\geq 0 . Since the sum of the interior angles of A B C D ABCD must be 36 0 360^\circ (all cyclic quadrilaterals are convex), 4 b + 6 n = 360 4b + 6n = 360 . Additionally, for any value of n n , m B + m D = m A + m C = 2 b + 3 n = 180 m\angle B + m\angle D = m\angle A + m\angle C = 2b + 3n = 180 , so the quadrilateral is indeed cyclic. For this equation to have integer solutions, b b must be a multiple of 3. So let b = 3 k b=3k ; then n = 60 2 k n=60-2k . Note that 1 k 30 1\leq k \leq 30 .

We can verify that both k = 1 k=1 and k = 30 k=30 yield valid solutions: the former gives angle measures 3 , 6 1 , 11 9 , 17 7 3^\circ, 61^\circ, 119^\circ, 177^\circ while the latter gives 9 0 , 9 0 , 9 0 , 9 0 90^\circ, 90^\circ, 90^\circ, 90^\circ . Thus the sum of all possible values of b b is k = 1 30 3 k = 3 ( 30 ) ( 31 ) 2 = 1395. \sum_{k=1}^{30} 3k = 3\frac{(30)(31)}{2} = 1395.

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