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jmc

geometry senior

Problem

Let be a square of side length . Two points are chosen independently at random on the sides of . The probability that the straight-line distance between the points is at least is , where , , and are positive integers with . What is ?
Solution
Divide the boundary of the square into halves, thereby forming segments. Without loss of generality, let the first point be in the bottom-left segment. Then, it is easy to see that any point in the segments not bordering the bottom-left segment will be distance at least apart from . Now, consider choosing the second point on the bottom-right segment. The probability for it to be distance at least apart from is because of linearity of the given probability. (Alternatively, one can set up a coordinate system and use geometric probability.) If the second point is on the left-bottom segment, then if is distance away from the left-bottom vertex, then must be up to away from the left-middle point. Thus, using an averaging argument we find that the probability in this case is (Alternatively, one can equate the problem to finding all valid with such that , i.e. is outside the unit circle with radius ) Thus, averaging the probabilities gives Our answer is .
Final answer
59