Hexagon inside pentagon

Geometry Level 4

Inscribe a regular hexagon inside a regular pentagon in such a manner that at least four of six vertices touch the pentagon. The hexagon does not cross the edge of the pentagon at any point. Find the largest hexagon which can be so inscribed. If the pentagon has side length 1, submit the length of the side of the hexagon, s s , as 1 0 4 s \lfloor{10^4s}\rfloor .


The answer is 7145.

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1 solution

Hosam Hajjir
Dec 18, 2020

Starting with a unit pentagon centered at the origin in standard orientation, its vertices { P i } \{P_i \} can be computed, as well as the normals to its sides { n i } \{n_i \} . In particular , if the radius of the pentagon is R R then,

R = 1 2 sin π 5 R = \dfrac{1}{2 \sin \frac{\pi}{5} }

Focusing on the right half of the pentagon, we take

P 1 = R ( sin π 5 , cos π 5 ) P_1= R ( \sin \frac{\pi}{5}, - \cos \frac{\pi}{5} )

P 2 = R ( sin 3 π 5 , cos 3 π 5 ) P_2 = R ( \sin \frac{3 \pi}{5} , - \cos \frac{3 \pi}{5} )

the normals to the right sides of the pentagon are

n 1 = ( sin 2 π 5 , cos 2 π 5 ) n_1 = ( \sin \frac{2 \pi}{5} , - \cos \frac{ 2 \pi}{5} )

n 2 = ( sin 4 π 5 , cos 4 π 5 ) n_2 = ( \sin \frac{4 \pi}{5} , - \cos \frac{ 4 \pi}{5} )

The hexagon is positioned as shown in the diagram above. Its center is at ( 0 , Y ) (0, Y) , and its side length is s s .

The right point on the hexagon has the following coordinates

Q 1 = ( s , Y ) Q_1 = ( s, Y )

and the upper right point has coordinates

Q 2 = ( 1 2 s , Y + 3 2 s ) Q_2 = ( \frac{1}{2} s , Y + \dfrac{\sqrt{3}}{2} s )

Imposing the condition that these two points lie on the sides of the pentagon, yields

n 1 . ( Q 1 P 1 ) = 0 n_1 . (Q_1 - P_1) = 0 , and

n 2 . ( Q 2 P 2 ) = 0 n_2 . (Q_2 - P_2) = 0

these equations are linear equations in s s and Y Y , and can be solved readily to yield,

s 0.71458037072 s \approx 0.71458037072 and Y 0.02778046 Y \approx -0.02778046

Hence, the answer is 1 0 4 ( 0.71458037072 ) = 7145 \lfloor 10^4(0.71458037072) \rfloor = \boxed{7145}

How do we know that the hexagon shares a common axis of symmetry ( y y ' y y ) with the pentagon?

Thanos Petropoulos - 5 months, 3 weeks ago

Actually in my first attempt at this problem I used Newton-Raphson iteration to find the solution, and the solution turned out to be this.

Hosam Hajjir - 5 months, 3 weeks ago

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