Spiral of Theodorus

Geometry Level 2

If you continued the spiral, what would be the value of the last hypotenuse before the triangles start to overlap?

If the value is h h , express it as 1000 h \lfloor1000h\rfloor .


The answer is 4123.

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1 solution

Gabriel Chacón
Apr 12, 2019

Spiral of Theodorus, from Wikipedia Spiral of Theodorus, from Wikipedia

The sum of the angles of the concurrent vertices is:

φ ( n ) = k = 1 n arctan 1 k = 2 n + c 2 ( n ) \varphi(n)=\displaystyle \sum_{k=1}^{n} \textstyle \arctan{\frac{1}{\sqrt{k}}} =2\sqrt{n}+c_2(n) , where lim n c 2 ( n ) 2.157783 \lim_{n \to \infty}c_2(n)\approx-2.157783

The following is a plot of how the correction term c 2 ( n ) c_2(n) varies with n n for the first 20 values of n n :

2 16 + c 2 ( 16 ) 6.128731 2 π n m a x = 16 2\sqrt{16}+c_2(16)\approx 6.128731 \le 2\pi \implies n_{max}=16 .

Therefore, h = 16 + 1 h=\sqrt{16+1} and 1000 h = 4123 \lfloor1000h\rfloor=\boxed{4123} .

Direct addition gives the maximum of n as 5

A Former Brilliant Member - 2 years, 1 month ago

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