Squares within squares

Consider a 3 × 3 3\times3 grid of 1 × 1 1\times1 squares. Now consider two other grid-squares, the same size as the previous ones, being placed randomly on the 3 × 3 3\times3 grid. The squares must be entirely on the grid, are allowed to overlap over the interior grid lines, and must have each side of the square parallel to a grid line. If the chance that the squares do not overlap is a b \frac{a}{b} for coprime positive integers a a and b b , find a + b a + b .


The answer is 23.

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1 solution

William Steinberg
May 11, 2017

For the two squares to overlap, the x and y coordinates of their centers must separately be both within one of each other. P(x coordinates being within one of each other) = 3/4, P(y coordinates being within one of each other) = 3/4, P(The two squares overlapping) = 9/16, P(The squares not overlapping) = 7/16, a = 7, b = 16, a + b = 23

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