Broken Stick

A stick of unit length is broken into two at a point chosen at random. Then, the larger part of the stick is further divided into two parts in the ratio 4:3. What is the probability that the three sticks that are left CANNOT form a triangle?

1/2 5/6 1/4 1/3

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1 solution

Chan Lye Lee
Jun 25, 2020

When the stick is broken into 2 parts, let the length of the shorter part be x x , where 0 < x 1 2 0 < x \le \dfrac{1}{2} . For the longer part, its length is 1 x 1-x . If the longer part is further divided to 2 parts into ratio 4:3, so the lengths are 3 ( 1 x ) 7 \dfrac{3(1-x)}{7} and 4 ( 1 x ) 7 \dfrac{4(1-x)}{7} respectively. If this 3 sticks CANNOT form a triangle, the sum of the two shorter parts is less than the longest part. This means that x + 3 ( 1 x ) 7 < 4 ( 1 x ) 7 x+\dfrac{3(1-x)}{7}<\dfrac{4(1-x)}{7}

Solve this inequality, we obtain x < 1 8 x<\dfrac{1}{8} . Then the probability that the three sticks that are left CANNOT form a triangle is 1 8 1 2 = 1 4 \dfrac{\,\,\,\dfrac{1}{8}\,\,\,}{\dfrac{1}{2}}=\boxed{\dfrac{1}{4}}

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