probably blast

Geometry Level 3

In a regular tetrahedron ,the centers of the four faces are the vertices of a smaller tetrahedron .The ratio of the smaller tetrahedron to that of larger is m/n ,where m and n are relatively prime positive integers. Find the value of (m+n).


The answer is 28.

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1 solution

Chew-Seong Cheong
Dec 13, 2014

Let the lengths of side of the large and small tetrahedrons be a a and b b respectively, the top vertex be A A and the bottom ones be B B , C C and D D . Let also the midpoints of B C BC , C D CD and D B DB be M M , N N and O O and the centers of A B C \triangle ABC , A C D \triangle ACD and A D B \triangle ADB be P P , Q Q and R R respectively.

We note that the ratio of the volumes of the small to the large tetrahedrons m n = b 3 a 3 \dfrac {m}{n} = \dfrac {b^3}{a^3} .

We also note that because of parallelism, the ratio of the side length of P Q R \triangle PQR to that of M N O \triangle MNO is the ratio of their perpendicular distances to A A . This ratio is also the ratio of A P : A M AP:AM .

The side length of P Q R = b \triangle PQR = b

The side length of M N O = 1 2 a \triangle MNO = \frac {1}{2}a

Therefore, we have b 1 2 a = A P A M \dfrac {b}{\frac{1}{2}a} = \dfrac {AP}{AM}

Let A P = B P = r AP = BP = r , P M = r cos 3 0 = 1 2 r \quad \Rightarrow PM = r \cos {30^\circ} = \frac {1}{2} r

b 1 2 a = A P A M = A P A P + P M = r r + 1 2 r = 1 3 2 = 2 3 b a = 1 3 \Rightarrow \dfrac {b}{\frac {1}{2} a} = \dfrac {AP}{AM} = \dfrac {AP}{AP+PM} = \dfrac {r}{r + \frac {1}{2} r} = \dfrac {1} {\frac{3}{2}} = \dfrac {2}{3} \quad \Rightarrow \dfrac {b}{a} = \dfrac {1}{3}

m n = b 3 a 3 = ( b a ) 3 = ( 1 3 ) 3 = 1 27 m + n = 1 + 27 = 28 \dfrac {m}{n} = \dfrac {b^3}{a^3} = \left( \dfrac {b}{a} \right)^3 = \left( \dfrac {1}{3} \right)^3 = \dfrac {1}{27} \quad \Rightarrow m+n = 1 + 27 = \boxed {28} .

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