Locus of the centroid

Geometry Level 5

Point D D lies on an edge of A B C \triangle{ABC} . The centroid of D E F \triangle{DEF} is G G . Let L L be the area of the locus of G G as D D traverses the boundary of A B C \triangle{ABC} and let T T be the area of A B C \triangle ABC . If L T = p q \frac{L}{T} = \frac{p}{q} , where p , q p,q are coprime positive integers, submit p + q . p+q.


The answer is 10.

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2 solutions

Mark Hennings
Dec 21, 2020

With an obvious notation the position vector of the centroid G G is g = 1 3 ( d + e + f ) g 1 2 ( e + f ) = 1 3 [ d 1 2 ( e + f ) ] \begin{aligned} \mathbf{g} & = \; \tfrac13(\mathbf{d} + \mathbf{e} + \mathbf{f}) \\ \mathbf{g} - \tfrac12(\mathbf{e}+\mathbf{f}) & = \; \tfrac13\left[\mathbf{d} - \tfrac12(\mathbf{e}+\mathbf{f})\right] \end{aligned} so that the homothecy H ( M , 1 3 ) H(M,\tfrac13) (enlargement with centre M M and scale factor 1 3 \tfrac13 ), where M M is the midpoint of E F EF , maps D D to G G . Thus the locus of G G is the image of the triangle A B C ABC under the homothecy H ( M , 1 3 ) H(M,\tfrac13) , and hence is a triangle similar to A B C ABC , but of one third the linear dimension. Thus we deduce that L = 1 9 T L = \tfrac19T , and hence L T = 1 9 \tfrac{L}{T} = \tfrac19 , making the answer 1 + 9 = 10 1+9=\boxed{10} .

K T
Feb 6, 2021

G is the average of 3 points. Assuming E and F are fixed, any movement of D will cause G to move by 1 3 \frac13 the distance in the same direction, so it describes a triangle that is 1 3 \frac13 the size of A B C \triangle{ABC} in two dimensions, resulting in 1 9 \frac19 its area.

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