Intriguing Ornament, Part II

Geometry Level 4

At the home of a mathematician friend I noticed an unusual holiday ornament the other day that consists of a sphere within a concentric cube. It would have been inappropriate to take a picture under the circumstances, but , fortunately, I found a somewhat similar picture online (the ornament comes in more pleasing colours, of course). The host explained that the ornament is skillfully designed so that the areas of the exposed parts of the sphere and of the cube are exactly equal. Find the ratio q = R a q=\frac{R}{a} between the radius R R of the sphere and the side length a a of the cube!

As your answer, submit 1000 q 1000q , rounded to the nearest integer.

Part I

Suggested by Jeremy Galvagni


The answer is 633.

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1 solution

Otto Bretscher
Dec 27, 2018

By symmetry, we may focus on one face of the cube. The surface area of a cap, 2 π R h = 2 π R ( R a 2 ) 2\pi Rh=2\pi R(R-\frac{a}{2}) , has to be equal to the area of a face of the cube, a 2 a^2 , minus the area of the disk covered up by the sphere, with radius R 2 a 2 4 \sqrt{R^2-\frac{a^2}{4}} , by Pythagoras. Thus we need to solve the equation 2 π R ( R a 2 ) = a 2 π ( R 2 a 2 4 ) 2\pi R(R-\frac{a}{2})=a^2-\pi\left(R^2-\frac{a^2}{4}\right) . Division by a 2 a^2 produces the quadratic equation 2 π q ( q 1 2 ) = 1 π ( q 2 1 4 ) 2\pi q(q-\frac{1}{2})=1-\pi\left(q^2-\frac{1}{4}\right) , with the relevant solution q = 1 6 + 1 9 + 1 3 π 0.6327 q=\frac{1}{6}+\sqrt{\frac{1}{9}+\frac{1}{3\pi}}\approx 0.6327 . The answer is 633 \boxed{633} .

Thanks for the credit. I'm not sure what I did wrong the other night, but I redid the problem and agree with you today.

Jeremy Galvagni - 2 years, 5 months ago

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Again, thank you for sharing the idea to this charming problem!

Otto Bretscher - 2 years, 5 months ago

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