Solving for a Length given the Medians

Geometry Level 3

Consider a A B C \triangle ABC with midpoints D D , E E , and F F on sides A B AB , B C BC , and C A CA respectively. The lengths of segments A E AE , B F BF , and C D CD are 4 4 , 10 \sqrt{10} , and 3 \sqrt{3} respectively. The length of segment E F EF can be written in the form j k \dfrac{j}{k} where j j and k k are coprime positive integers. Calculate j + k j + k .


The answer is 10.

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1 solution

Ik-Hyun Kim
Jul 13, 2016

Let a = B C a=BC , b = C A b=CA , and c = A B c=AB . By Apollonius Theorem, we find that m c = C D = 3 = 2 ( a 2 + b 2 ) c 2 4 m_c=CD=\sqrt{3}=\sqrt{\frac{2(a^2+b^2)-c^2}{4}} . Analogously we find m a = A E = 4 = 2 ( b 2 + c 2 ) a 2 4 m_a=AE=4=\sqrt{\frac{2(b^2+c^2)-a^2}{4}} and m b = B F = 10 = 2 ( a 2 + c 2 ) b 2 4 m_b=BF=\sqrt{10}=\sqrt{\frac{2(a^2+c^2)-b^2}{4}} . By using these three results we can get c = 2 3 2 ( m a 2 + m b 2 ) m c 2 c=\frac{2}{3}\sqrt{2(m_a^2+m_b^2)-m_c^2} . By substituting lengths of the medians as given in the problem, we get c = 14 3 c=\frac{14}{3} .

Note that E F EF is a midsegment of A B C \triangle ABC hence by similar triangles, c = 2 ( E F ) c=2(EF) which means that E F = 1 2 c = 7 3 EF=\frac{1}{2}c=\frac{7}{3} . Therefore j = 7 j=7 , k = 3 k=3 which gives us an answer of 7 + 3 = 10 7+3=10 .

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