A right triangle has legs a and b , and hypotenuse c .
The length of the median to the hypotenuse is 3 a 3 b + b 3 a .
If the length of the altitude to the hypotenuse can be expressed in the form n m for coprime positive integers m and n , find m + n .
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Simple standard approach of working through the equations.
Are there any restrictions on the value of a and b ?
Fine done (I did the same.). The question leaves: Why is this Level 5? I would rather tend to 4.
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I would tend to agree with you, low level 5 or high level 4, but as it sits it's at a 7% solve rate and 400 points. Maybe the whole cube root thing turns people off right away from even beginning to play with it. I've done that on problems before where I think it's going to be super tedious.
I solved with the same arguments, though not in the same sequence.
I have posted a problem inspired by your problem.
Do check it out :)
Suppose vertex of triangle be ( 0 , 0 and the other 2 vertex be ( a , 0 ) , ( 0 , b ) .
Now the mid point of hypotenuse is ( a / 2 , b / 2 ) .
By distance formulae and using the above given only info as well as c = a 2 + b 2 ,
we get c = 8 a b .
Now by using perpendicular length formulae from ( 0 , 0 ) to line
x / a + y / b = 1 .
We find
h = 1 / 8 .
Thus answer is
9 .
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We know that for any right triangle that the median to the hypotenuse is half of the length of the hypotenuse, so we get that c = 2 3 a 3 b + b 3 a = 2 3 a b 3 a 2 + b 2 .
By Pythagorean Theorem, c 2 = a 2 + b 2 , and so we know that 3 a 2 + b 2 = c 3 2
Let the altitude to the hypotenuse be h . By the basic formula for the area of a triangle, we get that 2 a b = A = 2 c h and so we know that a b = c h , and 3 a b = c 3 1 h 3 1
Substituting this all back in, we get that c = 2 c 3 1 h 3 1 c 3 2 , or 1 = 2 h 3 1 .
Solving for h gives us h = 8 1 , so m + n = 9