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Printsmc
geometry senior
Problem
How many non-congruent right triangles are there such that the perimeter in and the area in are numerically equal?
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
(E)
Solution
Let the triangle have legs of length and , so by the Pythagorean Theorem, the hypotenuse has length . Therefore we require Now, as and are side lengths of a triangle, they must both be non-zero, so we can safely divide by to give , so for any value of other than , we can generate a valid corresponding value of . Notice also that each of these values of will give a unique corresponding value of , since , and by considering the graph of , it is clear that any horizontal line will intersect it at most once. Thus there are infinitely many valid solutions (one for every value of except ), so the answer is .
Final answer
E