Dodecagon Folding

Geometry Level 3

Regular dodecagon A B C D E F G H I J K L ABCDEFGHIJKL has unit sides, and diagonals B D BD , F H FH , J L JL , A E AE , E I EI , and I A IA are drawn as shown.

Triangles B C D \triangle BCD , F G H \triangle FGH , and J K L \triangle JKL are cut out and discarded. Trapezoids A B D E ABDE , E F H I EFHI , and I J L A IJLA are folded up along diagonals A E AE , E I EI , and I A IA respectively so that B B meets L L , D D meets F F , and H H meets J J , forming a truncated pyramid with A E I \triangle AEI as its base.

If the height of the truncated pyramid is a b \frac{\sqrt{a}}{b} , where both a a and b b are square free positive integers, find a + b a + b .


The answer is 6.

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1 solution

Michael Mendrin
Oct 10, 2018

Angles A E D \angle AED and I E F \angle IEF are both 45 45 degrees, so consider a right angled pyramid of 3 3 edges of length 1 1 meeting at the apex, and an equilateral triangle base of side 2 \sqrt{2} . The height of this pyramid is 1 3 \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}

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