A black square and a red square inside it have blue lines connecting their vertices.
The black square has a side length of while the blue connecting lines have lengths as shown. The red square has an integer side length
Find the smallest such that all the vertices the black square and the red square have integer coordinates, assuming that the sides of the black square are parallel to axes.
Special thanks to Jon Haussmann for his timely assistance
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Let the bottom left vertex of the black square be the origin O ( 0 , 0 ) of the x y -plane. Label the red square A B C D as shown. Since the coordinates of A , B , C , and D are integers, we can find them using Pythagorean theorem .
Using a simple Python code as shown above (using the Coding environment of Brilliant.org), it is found that the only possible coordinates of C are ( 1 2 4 , 9 3 ) . Similarly, the only possible coordinates of A are ( 7 5 , 1 2 4 ) . We note that A C = 2 s , where s is the side length of the red square. Then 2 s = ( 1 2 4 − 7 5 ) 2 + ( 9 3 − 1 2 4 ) 2 = 4 1 2 ⟹ s = 4 1 .
The vertices that give a side length of 4 1 are A ( 7 5 , 1 2 4 ) , B ( 1 1 5 , 1 3 3 ) , C ( 1 2 4 , 9 3 ) , and D ( 8 4 , 8 4 ) .