Good Quadrilaterals

Consider a convex 50-sided polygon P P . A simple quadrilateral with all its vertices among those of P P is called good if it shares at least 2 2 sides in common with P P . Find the number of good quadrilaterals.

Note: A simple quadrilaterial has no self-intersections.


The answer is 3425.

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2 solutions

Jimmy Qin
Feb 8, 2015

Case 1: Two non-adjacent sides. There are ( 50 2 ) \binom{50}{2} pairs of sides, of which 50 have adjacent sides. ( 50 2 ) \binom{50}{2} - 50 = 1175 quadrilaterals.

Case 2: Two adjacent sides. There are 50 pairs of adjacent sides. Each of these quadrilaterals has three vertices determined by the two adjacent sides. To make this case different from case 1, the final vertex can be chosen from the 45 vertices not included in or adjacent to the first three. 50*45 = 2250 quadrilaterals.

1175 + 2250 = 3425 total quadrilaterals.

What is with three adjacent sides? That is 50 more quadrilaterals,. It is 3475 quadrilatetals in total?

Ela Marinić-Kragić - 6 years, 2 months ago

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That is already included in case 1, where there are 2 non-adjacent sides.

Calvin Lin Staff - 5 years, 8 months ago

What about three adjacent sides ???

Kushal Bose - 4 years, 7 months ago

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That is already included in case 1, where there are 2 non-adjacent sides.

Calvin Lin Staff - 4 years, 7 months ago

Saying "two non-adjacent sides" is a bit ambiguous. It kind of implies that there are only 2 sides included the first time you read it...

Dan Ley - 4 years, 3 months ago
Marta Reece
Jan 7, 2017

There are three cases:

(1) three adjacent sides (total 50 of those)

(2) two adjacent sides, but not three (50 places the adjacent sides can be, then for each of those locations 45 places for the remaining vertex - 2250 total)

(3) two non-adjacent sides (50 places the first side can go, 45 places for each of those for the second side, but that counts each pair twice so divide by 2 - 1125 total)

Same method, though your calculation for two non-adjacent sides is much better, thanks for sharing!

Dan Ley - 4 years, 3 months ago

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