The Pyramid Scheme!

Geometry Level 5

In the regular tetrahedron A B C D ABCD of edge length 10 10 , there is the blue regular tetrahedron P P of edge length 1 1 . As shown above, tetrahedron P P can move freely as long as it touches any edge of the tetrahedron A B C D ABCD . At this time, how many times the volume of the tetrahedron P P is the volume of the part through which the tetrahedron P P does not pass (inside the tetrahedron A B C D ABCD )?

C h a l l e n g e : \mathbf{Challenge:} Try to do this without any trigonometry.


The answer is 850.

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1 solution

Figure 1 Figure 1 As depicted in figure 1, there are 4 copies of P P on the four vertices of A B C D ABCD (coloured in cyan) and, among them, 8 other copies of P P on every edge of the big tetrahedron. This makes a total of 4 + 6 × 8 = 52 4+6\times 8=52 copies of P P . Between every two adjacent small tetrahedrons there is a square pyramid with all its edges being unit segments.

In order to calculate the volume of such a pyramid we need to know the length of its height. Figure 2 Figure 2 In figure 2, we have K M = 1 2 KM=\dfrac{1}{2} , A M = 3 2 AM=\dfrac{\sqrt{3}}{2} , thus, by Pythagorean theorem, A K = A M 2 K M 2 = ( 3 2 ) 2 ( 1 2 ) 2 = 1 2 AK=\sqrt{A{{M}^{2}}-K{{M}^{2}}}=\sqrt{{{\left( \dfrac{\sqrt{3}}{2} \right)}^{2}}-{{\left( \dfrac{1}{2} \right)}^{2}}}=\dfrac{1}{\sqrt{2}} Hence, V p y r a m i d = 1 3 [ B C D E ] A K = 1 3 × 1 2 × 1 2 = 1 3 2 {{V}_{pyramid}}=\dfrac{1}{3}\left[ BCDE \right]\cdot AK=\dfrac{1}{3}\times {{1}^{2}}\times \dfrac{1}{\sqrt{2}}=\dfrac{1}{3\sqrt{2}} The volume of the part through which the tetrahedron P P passes, is the compound volume of the 52 copies of P P plus the volume of the pyramids. On every edge there are 9 of them, but the ones nearest to the vertices of A B C D ABCD do overlap, producing a regular octahedron (two pyramids with common base) form which a part is not covered by moving P P . This part corresponds to the polyhedron outlined with black edges in figure 3. Its volume is one fourth of the pyramid, hence, near every vertex of A B C D ABCD we have a volume of ( 2 1 4 ) V p y r a m i d = 7 4 V p y r a m i d \left( 2-\dfrac{1}{4} \right){{V}_{pyramid}}=\dfrac{7}{4}{{V}_{pyramid}} covered by moving P P .

Figure 3 Figure 3

We denote by V {V}' the volume of the part inside A B C D ABCD through which the tetrahedron P P does not pass and by V P {{V}_{P}} the volume of P P .
The similarity ratio of A B C D ABCD and P P is r = edge of A B C D edge of P = 10 r=\dfrac{\text{edge of }ABCD}{\text{edge of }P}=10 , hence V = r 3 V P V = 1000 V P {V}'={{r}^{3}}{{V}_{P}}\Rightarrow {V}'=1000{{V}_{P}} Doing the calculations for the required number, V V p = V A B C D { 52 V P + ( 6 × 7 + 4 × 7 4 ) V p y r a m i d } V P = 10 3 V P ( 52 V P + 49 V p y r a m i d ) V P = 948 × 1 3 6 2 49 × 1 3 2 1 3 6 2 = 948 98 = 850 \begin{aligned} \dfrac{{{V}'}}{{{V}_{p}}} & =\dfrac{{{V}_{ABCD}}-\left\{ 52{{V}_{P}}+\left( 6\times 7+4\times \dfrac{7}{4} \right){{V}_{pyramid}} \right\}}{{{V}_{P}}} \\ & =\dfrac{{{10}^{3}}{{V}_{P}}-\left( 52{{V}_{P}}+49{{V}_{pyramid}} \right)}{{{V}_{P}}} \\ & =\dfrac{948\times \dfrac{{{1}^{3}}}{6\sqrt{2}}-49\times \dfrac{1}{3\sqrt{2}}}{\frac{{{1}^{3}}}{6\sqrt{2}}} \\ & =948-98 \\ & =850 \\ \end{aligned} Thus, V = 850 V P {V}'=850{{V}_{P}} . The answer is 850 \boxed{850} .

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