Bay Area Circle for Teachers

Paul Zeitz (zeitz@usfca.edu)

Symmetry
June 28, 2009

1 A square is inscribed in a circle that is inscribed in a square. Find the ratio of the areas of
the two squares.
2 Compute 1 + 2 + 3 + + 100.
3 Your cabin is two miles due north of a stream that runs east-west. Your grandmothers
cabin is located 12 miles west and one mile north of your cabin. Every day, you go from
your cabin to Grandmas, but first visit the stream (to get fresh water for Grandma). What
is the length of the route with minimum distance?
4 Find the length of the shortest path from the point (3,5) to the point (8,2) that touches the
x-axis and also touches the y-axis.
5 Let (n) denote the number of divisors of the integer n, including 1 and n. For example,
(10) = 4. Prove that (n) is odd if and only iff n is a perfect square.
6 Find (and prove) a nice formula for the product of the divisors of any integer. For example,
if n = 12, the product of its divisors is
1 2 3 4 6 12 = 1728.
7 Prove the Pythagorean Theorem, which says that if the legs of a right triangle have length
a and b, and the hypotenuse has length c, then a2 + b2 = c2 . Hint: Start with a square of
side-length c.
8 Find the area of the indicated parallelogram, if the side of each regular hexagon is 1 unit.

Bay Area Circles for Teachers

Symmetry

June 28, 2009

9 How many subsets of the set {1, 2, 3, 4, . . . , 30} have the property that the sum of the elements of the subset is greater than 232?
10 Chasing Bugs.
(a) Four bugs are situated at each vertex of a unit square. Suddenly, each bug begins to
chase its counterclockwise neighbor. If the bugs travel at 1 unit per minute, how long
will it take for the four bugs to crash into one another?
(b) As the bugs travel, they turn. For example, if one bug starts out facing due north,
but then gradually comes to face due west, it will have turned 90 . It may even be that
the bugs turn more than 360 . How much does each bug turn (in degrees) before they
crash into each other?
11 Consider the following two-player game. Each player takes turns placing a penny on the
surface of a rectangular table. No penny can touch a penny that is already on the table. The
table starts out with no pennies. The last player who makes a legal move wins. Does the
first player have a winning strategy?

12 A billiard ball (of infinitesimal diameter) strikes ray BC at point C, with angle of incidence
as shown. The billiard ball continues its path, bouncing off line segments AB and BC
according to the rule angle of incidence equals angle of reflection. If AB = BC, determine
the number of times the ball will bounce off the two line segments (including the first
bounce, at C). Your answer will be a function of and .
A

13 Recall that the ellipse is defined to be the locus of all points in the plane, the sum of whose
distance to two fixed points (the foci) is a constant. Prove the reflection property of the
ellipse: if a pool table is built with an elliptical wall and you shoot a ball from one focus to
any point on the wall, the ball will reflect off the wall and travel straight to the other focus.

Bay Area Circles for Teachers

Symmetry

June 28, 2009

14 Prove Wilsons Theorem, which says that for all primes p,

(p 1)! 1 (mod p).
15 Solve x4 + x3 + x2 + x + 1 = 0.
16 A spherical, three-dimensional planet has center at (0, 0, 0) and radius 20. At any point
(x, y, z) on the surface of this planet, the temperature is T (x, y, z) := (x + y)2 + (y z)2
degrees. What is the average temperature of the surface of this planet?
17 (Putnam 1980) Evaluate
Z /2
0

dx

.
2

1 + (tan x)

18 Inequalities.
(a) Prove the 2-variable AM-GM inequality: If a, b are positive, then
a+b
ab,
2
with equality if and only if a = b.
(b) Prove that
(a + b)(b + c)(c + a) 8abc
is true for all positive numbers a, b and c, with equality only if a = b = c.
(c) Prove the AM-GM inequality for an arbitrary number of variables: If a1 , a2 , . . . , an
are positive, then
a1 + a2 + + an
n a1 a2 an ,
n
with equality if and only if a1 = a2 = = an .