Unique Triangle!

Find the least perimeter of a right triangle whose sides and altitudes are integers.


The answer is 60.

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1 solution

We are looking for the "least" Pythagorean triangle such that the altitude from the hypotenuse is integer-valued. Letting the sides of the triangle be a , b , a,b, the hypotenuse c c and the altitude from the hypotenuse be d , d, then the area of the triangle is both 1 2 a b \frac{1}{2}ab and 1 2 c d . \frac{1}{2}cd. Thus we require that a b = c d d = a b c . ab = cd \Longrightarrow d = \dfrac{ab}{c}.

Now the lengths of a primitive Pythagorean triangle are coprime, which means that for such triangles d d cannot be an integer. But if we look at non-primitive Pythagorean triangles of side lengths k a , k b , k c ka,kb,kc for some integer k > 1 k \gt 1 then d = k a b c , d = \dfrac{kab}{c}, which implies that d d will be an integer if c k . c|k.

Now the "least" hypotenuse of any Pythagorean triangle is 5 , 5, so we will obtain the desired triangle by choosing k = 5 k = 5 and the primitive Pythagorean triangle with side lengths 3 , 4 , 5. 3,4,5. This gives us 15 , 20 , 25 15,20,25 as the side lengths of the desired triangle, rendering a perimeter of 60 . \boxed{60}.

Did it exactly the same way

Samarth Agarwal - 6 years ago

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