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jmc

geometry senior

Problem

Let be a diameter of a circle with diameter 1. Let and be points on one of the semicircular arcs determined by such that is the midpoint of the semicircle and . Point lies on the other semicircular arc. Let be the length of the line segment whose endpoints are the intersections of diameter with chords and . The largest possible value of can be written in the form , where and are positive integers and is not divisible by the square of any prime. Find .
Solution
Let and . Further more let and . Angle chasing reveals and . Additionally and by the Pythagorean Theorem. By the Angle Bisector Formula, As we compute and , and finally . Taking the derivative of with respect to , we arrive atClearly the maximum occurs when . Plugging this back in, using the fact that and , we get with
Final answer
14