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jmc

geometry senior

Problem

An equilateral triangle is inscribed in the ellipse whose equation is . One vertex of the triangle is , one altitude is contained in the y-axis, and the square of the length of each side is , where and are relatively prime positive integers. Find .
Solution
Denote the vertices of the triangle and where is in quadrant 4 and is in quadrant Note that the slope of is Hence, the equation of the line containing isThis will intersect the ellipse when\begin{eqnarray}4 = x^{2} + 4y^{2} & = & x^{2} + 4(x\sqrt {3} + 1)^{2} \\ & = & x^{2} + 4(3x^{2} + 2x\sqrt {3} + 1) \implies x(13x+8\sqrt 3)=0\implies x = \frac { - 8\sqrt {3}}{13}. \end{eqnarray}We ignore the solution because it is not in quadrant 3. Since the triangle is symmetric with respect to the y-axis, the coordinates of and are now and respectively, for some value of It is clear that the value of is irrelevant to the length of . Our answer is
Final answer
937