Tetrahedral Slice

Geometry Level 3

Regular tetrahedron A B C D ABCD is cut by a plane such that a new, irregular tetrahedron A P Q R APQR is formed.

If the area of A P R \triangle APR is 10 3 10 \sqrt{3} , the area of A P Q \triangle APQ is 14 + 61 14 + \sqrt{61} , and the area of A Q R \triangle AQR is 14 61 14 - \sqrt{61} , find the volume of tetrahedron A P Q R APQR .


The answer is 20.

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1 solution

Otto Bretscher
Dec 27, 2018

Let p = A P , q = A Q , r = A R p=||AP||,q=||AQ||,r=||AR|| . Using basic trigonometry, we find that the area of Δ A P R \Delta APR is sin ( π 3 ) p r 2 = 3 4 p r \sin(\frac{\pi}{3})\frac{pr}{2}=\frac{\sqrt3}{4}pr . Writing analogous equations for the other two triangles and multiplying them together, we find that ( 3 4 ) 3 ( p q r ) 2 = 10 3 ( 1 4 2 61 ) \left(\frac{\sqrt 3}{4}\right)^3(pqr)^2=10\sqrt{3}(14^2-61) so p q r = 120 2 pqr=120\sqrt{2} . Finally, scaling the volume formula V = a 3 6 2 V=\frac{a^3}{6\sqrt{2}} for a regular tetrahedron, we can conclude that V = p q r 6 2 = 20 V=\frac{pqr}{6\sqrt{2}}=\boxed{20} .

A charming and very well-crafted problem! Thank you for sharing!

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

David Vreken - 2 years, 5 months ago

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