Just No Ordinary Triangle

Calculus Level 4

What is the expected area of a right triangle with a hypotenuse of 5 whose non-right angles are uniformly distributed over the interval ( 0 , π 2 ) (0, \frac{\pi}{2}) ?

If the answer is A A , then input 1000 A \lfloor 1000A \rfloor .


Notation: \lfloor \cdot \rfloor denotes the floor function .


Bonus: Generalize this for any hypotenuse k k , if you may. :)

Another version awaits here.


The answer is 3978.

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2 solutions

Efren Medallo
May 20, 2017

If the hypotenuse of such triangle is 5 5 , then its legs are 5 sin θ 5 \sin \theta and 5 cos θ 5 \cos \theta for some angle θ \theta such that 0 < θ < π 2 0 < \theta < \frac{\pi}{2} .

The area of this triangle is 25 2 sin θ cos θ \frac{25}{2} \sin \theta \cos \theta .

Now, to find its expected area over the inteval ( 0 , π 2 ) (0, \frac{\pi}{2}) , we do

A = 0 π 2 25 2 sin θ cos θ d θ π 2 0 A = \frac { \displaystyle \int_0^{\frac{\pi}{2}} \frac{25}{2} \sin \theta \cos \theta \mathrm{d}\theta }{ \frac{\pi}{2} - 0 }

A = 25 π sin 2 θ 2 0 π 2 A = \frac{25}{\pi} \frac{\sin^2 \theta}{2} \Bigg|_0^{\frac{\pi}{2}}

A = 25 2 π 3.978873 A = \frac{25}{2\pi} \approx 3.978873

Hence, 1000 A = 3978 \lfloor 1000A \rfloor = 3978 .

What if instead of uniformly choosing the angle, we uniformly chose the altitude instead? I believe that would give a different answer.

Shaun Leong - 4 years ago

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Upon verification, that is true. I will edit the problem accordingly.

Efren Medallo - 4 years ago
Chew-Seong Cheong
May 20, 2017

Let one of the non-right angle be x x , then the probability of uniformly distributed random variable X X is given by P ( a X b ) = a b 1 π 2 d x = a b 2 π d x \displaystyle P\left(a \le X \le b \right) = \int_a^b \dfrac 1{\frac \pi 2} dx = \int_a^b \dfrac 2 \pi \ dx .

Since the area of the right triangle with hypotenuse of k k is A = k 2 sin x cos x 2 = k 2 sin 2 x 4 A_\triangle = \dfrac {k^2\sin x \cos x}2 = \dfrac {k^2\sin 2x}4 , then the expected value of A A_\triangle is as follows:

E ( A ) = 0 π 2 2 π k 2 sin 2 x 4 d x = k 2 cos 2 x 4 π 0 π 2 = k 2 2 π \begin{aligned} E\left(A_\triangle \right) & = \int_0^\frac \pi 2 \frac 2\pi \cdot \frac {k^2\sin 2x}4 dx = - \frac {k^2\cos 2x}{4\pi} \ \bigg|_0^\frac \pi 2 = \frac {k^2}{2\pi} \end{aligned}

For k = 5 k=5 , E ( A ) = A = 25 2 π 3.97887 E\left(A_\triangle \right) = A = \dfrac {25}{2\pi} \approx 3.97887 , 1000 A = 3978 \implies \lfloor 1000A \rfloor = \boxed{3978} .

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