How many distinct cuboids are there whose volume, surface area and total edge length are all numerically equal?
No tricks - all the cuboid's dimensions should be positive, real numbers (not necessarily integers). Two cuboids are considered distinct if one cannot be obtained from the other by rotation (or by re-ordering the dimensions).
A few examples for clarity: the cuboid with dimensions 1 × 1 × 1 (ie the unit cube) has volume 1 , surface area 6 and total edge length 1 2 .
The cuboid with dimensions 4 × 8 × 8 has volume and surface area 2 5 6 , but total edge length 8 0 .
The cuboid with dimensions 1 × 2 × 4 has surface area and total edge length 2 8 , but volume 8 .
This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try
refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and,
finally, (c)
loading the
non-javascript version of this page
. We're sorry about the hassle.
Great solution! Thanks for the write-up.
Did you have a go at the second and third problems? I'd be especially interested if there's an elegant solution for the third one in particular (I have a solution, but it's rather long-winded).
Let
a
,
b
,
c
be the dimensions of the cuboid.
Then the volume
V
, the surface area
S
and the total edge length
L
are:
(
1
)
V
(
2
)
S
(
3
)
L
=
a
b
c
=
2
(
a
b
+
b
c
+
c
a
)
=
4
(
a
+
b
+
c
)
We want V = S = L .
Then,
( 1 ) , ( 2 ) ⇒ c 1 = 2 1 − a 1 − b 1 ( 1 ) , ( 3 ) ⇒ c 1 = 4 a + 4 b a b − 4 ⎭ ⎪ ⎪ ⎪ ⎬ ⎪ ⎪ ⎪ ⎫ ⇒ 2 1 − a 1 − b 1 = 4 a + 4 b a b − 4 ⇔ ( b 2 − 2 b + 4 ) a 2 + 2 b ( 2 − b ) a + 4 b 2 = 0
This quadratic, in terms of a , must have non-negative discriminant Δ , but Δ = 4 b 2 ( − 3 b 2 + 4 b − 1 2 ) < 0 , for all b > 0 .
Hence, there are no triples of positive real numbers simultaneously satisfying ( 1 ) , ( 2 ) and ( 3 ) , i.e. there are no cuboids with the required property. The answer is N o n e .
Very nice writeup - thanks for sharing a different approach.
Log in to reply
Thank you! I'm glad you liked it. It was an interesting problem. Now, I'll go for your #II and #III.
Problem Loading...
Note Loading...
Set Loading...
We want to find positive real numbers x , y , z such that x y z = 2 ( x y + x z + y z ) = 4 ( x + y + z ) , so that x + y + z = u x y + x z + y z = 2 u x y z = 4 u for some real u ., This means that the cubic polynomial f u ( X ) = X 3 − u X 2 + 2 u X − 4 u must have three positive real zeros x , y , z . Thus we deduce that the cubic discriminant Δ 3 = − 1 2 u 4 + 1 1 2 u 3 − 4 3 2 u 2 = − 4 u 2 ( 3 u 2 − 2 8 u + 1 0 8 ) must be nonnegative. SInce the roots are all positive, we must have u > 0 (so that the coefficients of f u ( X ) alternate in sign). But the quadratic 3 u 2 − 2 8 u + 1 0 8 has discriminant − 5 1 2 < 0 and hence we deduce that 3 u 2 − 2 8 u + 1 0 8 > 0 for all u . Thus the only value of u for which Δ ≥ 0 is u = 0 , which implies that x = y = z = 0 , and we do not have a proper cuboid in this case.
Thus there are no cuboids with the required property.