Pac man cannibal

Calculus Level 4

We see a yellow pac-man has eaten a smaller red pac-man. The angle formed by the yellow pac-man's mouth is twice as large as the angle formed by the red pac-man's mouth.

What is the angle of the red pac-man's mouth in degrees if the ratio Area yellow Area red \dfrac{\text{Area}_{\text{yellow}}}{\text{Area}_{\text{red}}} is minimized?

Note: If the red one gets too big the yellow one might die.


The answer is 93.17991718.

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1 solution

Jeremy Galvagni
Oct 12, 2018

If the red pac-man has radius 1, and 2 θ 2\theta is the angle of its mouth, then the yellow pac-man's radius is 1 2 cos θ + 1 \frac{1}{2\cos{\theta}+1}

The ratio of the areas simplifies to ( 1 2 cos θ + 1 ) 2 180 2 θ 180 θ (\frac{1}{2\cos{\theta}+1})^{2}\frac{180-2\theta}{180-\theta} which is too messy to give an exact analytical solution.

Wolfram|Alpha says this is minimized if θ = 46.5898585 9 \theta=46.58985859^{\circ} and so 2 θ = 93.1799171 8 2\theta=\boxed{93.17991718^{\circ}} and Geometer's sketchpad agrees.

A picture of this looks funny because the yellow pac-man's mouth is open more than 180 degrees.

But here's the question. If pac-man opens his mouth greater than 180, is he still pac-man?

Steven Chase - 2 years, 8 months ago

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Yeah, that's right... looks like what happens when a snake regurgitates

Michael Mendrin - 2 years, 8 months ago

A good question, but still better than just calling them sectors, right?

Jeremy Galvagni - 2 years, 8 months ago

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Jeremy, I think the problem would be clearer if you asked for the minimum ratio of yellow to red areas, i.e., A r e a y e l l l o w A r e a r e d \dfrac{Area_{yelllow}}{Area_{red}} , instead of "ratio of their two areas", which is a bit vague.

Michael Mendrin - 2 years, 8 months ago

Yeah, it's just that I initially restricted my range of attention to (0,pi/2) in order to have a proper pac-man.

Steven Chase - 2 years, 8 months ago

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@Steven Chase Thanks for the help fellas.

Jeremy Galvagni - 2 years, 8 months ago

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