Tetrahedral Trouble

Logic Level 5

Suraj is holding a tetrahedron net that has all integer side lengths (although the faces don't need to meet up to form an actual tetrahedron, just that the sides can create faces).

He says to his friend Binay, "The lengths of 5 of the 6 edges are as follows: 17, 23, 40, 58, 65. You have 3 chances to guess the sixth length."

Binay guesses intelligently 3 times.

What is the probability that Binay gets it correct within the 3 guesses (to 3 decimal places)?


The answer is 0.107.

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1 solution

Stephen Mellor
Mar 31, 2018

All of the faces must satisfy the triangle inequality: a + b > c a + b > c (it can't be equal).

Consider an edge A A . Without loss of generality, A A will create two faces: A , B , C A,B,C and A , D , E A,D,E . This means that there is exactly one edge F F that doesn't create a face with A A (and similarly for each edge that is considered).

Also note that if we swap B B and C C around, and also swap D D and E E around, the collection of faces on the right of the diagram don't change (meaning that we can fill in edges that we know later on without the loss of generality).


Assuming that A = 17 A = 17 , consider the edge with length 23 23 . If 17 17 was to create a face with 23 23 , the third edge of the triangular face cannot be 40 40 , 58 58 or 65 65 as these don't satisfy the triangle inequality so the face would have to be { 17 , 23 , ? } \{17,23,?\} . Alternatively, 17 17 and 23 23 could be edges that are opposite and don't create a face.

Assuming that A = 17 A = 17 , consider the edge with length 40 40 . If 17 17 was to create a face with 40 40 , the third edge of the triangular face cannot be 23 23 , 58 58 or 65 65 as these don't satisfy the triangle inequality so the face would have to be { 17 , 40 , ? } \{17,40,?\} . Alternatively, 17 17 and 40 40 could be edges that are opposite and don't create a face.

Now we have 2 2 different pairs of options:

Considering 23: { 17 , 23 , ? } \color{#3D99F6} \{17,23,?\} 17 and 23 are opposite \color{#69047E} 17 \text{ and } 23 \text{ are opposite}
Considering 40: { 17 , 40 , ? } \color{#D61F06} \{17,40,?\} 17 and 40 are opposite \color{#EC7300} 17 \text{ and } 40 \text{ are opposite}

Now we must select one option from each row. However, since only one edge can be opposite 17 17 we cannot have the purple and orange together (also the 17 17 and ? ? can't be on two faces together if blue and red are together). Therefore either the blue \color{#3D99F6} \text{blue} and orange \color{#EC7300} \text{orange} statements are true or the purple \color{#69047E} \text{purple} and red \color{#D61F06} \text{red} statements are true.


Case 1: { 17 , 23 , ? } \{17,23,?\} forms a face, and 17 17 is opposite 40 40

We can fill in 23 23 and ? ? as B B and C C (proven above that this is without loss of generality) meaning that we get: A = 17 A=17 , B = 23 B=23 , C = ? C=? , D = D= , E = E= , F = 40 F=40 . Now since we know that { B , D , F } \{B,D,F\} forms a face, due to the triangle inequality, D < 23 + 40 D < 23 + 40 meaning that D D must equal 58 58 .

This means that: A = 17 A=17 , B = 23 B=23 , C = ? C=? , D = 58 D=58 , E = 65 E=65 , F = 40 F=40 . We can now compare all these numbers with the triangle inequality for all 4 4 of the faces that are shown on the diagram. Checking, we see that the ones with known numbers satisfy, and we also get that 25 < ? < 40 25 < ? < 40 giving us 14 \boxed{14} possible integer values for ? ? .

Case 2: { 17 , 40 , ? } \{17,40,?\} forms a face, and 17 17 is opposite 23 23

We can fill in 40 40 and ? ? as B B and C C (proven above that this is without loss of generality) meaning that we get: A = 17 A=17 , B = 40 B=40 , C = ? C=? , D = D= , E = E= , F = 23 F=23 . Now since we know that { B , D , F } \{B,D,F\} forms a face, due to the triangle inequality, D < 40 + 23 D < 40 + 23 meaning that D D must equal 58 58 .

This means that: A = 17 A=17 , B = 40 B=40 , C = ? C=? , D = 58 D=58 , E = 65 E=65 , F = 23 F=23 . We can now compare all these numbers with the triangle inequality for all 4 4 of the faces that are shown on the diagram. Checking, we see that the ones with known numbers satisfy, and we also get that 42 < ? < 57 42 < ? < 57 giving us another (distinct) 14 \boxed{14} possible integer values for ? ? .


Binay now knows that there are 14 + 14 = 28 14 + 14 = 28 possibilities for the sixth edge length.

Since Binay won't guess the same thing twice, P ( Not guessing correctly ) = 27 28 × 26 27 × 25 26 = 25 28 P(\text{Not guessing correctly}) = \frac{27}{28} \times \frac{26}{27} \times \frac{25}{26} = \frac{25}{28} Therefore, P ( Guessing correctly ) = 1 25 28 = 3 28 0.107 P(\text{Guessing correctly}) = 1 - \frac{25}{28} = \frac{3}{28} \approx \boxed{0.107}

I think you have made a mistake while counting the different possibilities. Two triangle inequalities are not sufficient to determine the boundaries.

I illustrated this using geogebra: https://ggbm.at/Q5p6EyZn .(you have a slider "show" to display the different extreme cases, that is when the tetrahedron is flat) There you can see that integer values between 26 and 37 are possible in case 1, and between 44 and 51 in case 2. That makes 12+8=20 possibilities. Therefore the answer should be 3/20=0.150.

(Sorry I don't know how to use the fancy latex display for numbers).

Pierre Stöber - 3 years, 2 months ago

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(https://brilliant.org/discussions/thread/latex-guide/ is a really good reference point that I often use for latex). I'm not sure how we got different answers though. I don't see why, for example, 17,23,39,40,58,65 isn't a possibility?

Stephen Mellor - 3 years, 2 months ago

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In your example, I think that you could build the 4 individual faces of the tetrahedron (let's say you make them out of paper), but you would be unable to make a 3D figure without bending or folding the paper. I'd say that this comes from the fact that the tetrahedron has only 4 degrees of freedom, like its number of vertices, not 6 like its number of edges. As such there have to be some relationships between the edges (other than the triangle inequality for each side) that forbid certain configurations of edge lengths, like in your example. If I'm not mistaken, my solution is the correct one.

EDIT: I had a pretty hard time figuring out why your suggestion doesn't work. That's why I came up with this simpler illustration: https://goopics.net/i/WNr2r . It represents the net of a tetrahedron. Even if the edge lengths match, you cannot make a proper tetrahedron out of it. In fact, for any convex polyhedron, the sum of the angles that meet at a vertex must always be smaller than 360 degrees. I hope it helps.

Pierre Stöber - 3 years, 2 months ago

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@Pierre Stöber Yes you are right, there is also the restriction that the sum of the areas of three faces must be greater than the fourth. I have changed the problem so this doesn't matter

Stephen Mellor - 3 years, 2 months ago

Nice solution.

D K - 2 years, 10 months ago

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