1986 AIME Problems

1. Problem
What is the sum of the solutions to the equation

Solution
Let

. Then we have

This means that

, or, by simplifying,
or .

Thus the sum of the possible solutions for

is

2. Problem
Evaluate the product

Solution
Simplify by repeated application of the difference of squares.

3. Problem
If

and

, what is

Solution
Since

is the reciprocal function of

Thus,
Using the tangent addition formula:

4. Problem
Determine

if

, and

satisfy the system of equations below.

Solution
Adding all five equations gives
us
Subtracting this from the fourth given equation gives
equation gives

so
.
and subtracting it from the fifth given

, so our answer is

5. Problem
What is that largest positive integer

for which

is divisible by

Solution
If

. Using the Euclidean algorithm, we

have
, so

must divide 900. The greatest integer

for which

is 890; we can double-check manually and we find that indeed

divides 900

In a similar manner, we can apply synthetic division. We are looking

for

. Again,

must be a factor of

6. Problem
The pages of a book are numbered through . When the page numbers of the book were added, one of
the page numbers was mistakenly added twice, resulting in an incorrect sum of
. What was the
number of the page that was added twice?

Solution
Denote the page number as , with
Since
for

. The sum formula shows that

cannot be very large, disregard it for now and solve

. The positive root
. Quickly testing, we find that
is too large, but if we plug in
we find that our

answer is

7. Problem
The increasing sequence

consists of all those positive integers which

are powers of 3 or sums of distinct powers of 3. Find the

term of this sequence.

Solution
Solution 1
Rewrite all of the terms in base 3. Since the numbers are sums of distinct powers of 3, in base 3 each
number is a sequence of 1s and 0s (if there is a 2, then it is no longer the sum of distinct powers of 3).
Therefore, we can recast this into base 2 (binary) in order to determine the 100th number.
is equal
to
, so in binary form we get
. However, we must change it back to base 10 for the
answer, which is

Solution 2
Notice that the first term of the sequence is , the second is , the fourth is , and so on. Thus
the
term of the sequence is
. Now out of terms which are of the form
+
,
of them
include
and
do not. The smallest term that includes
, i.e.
, is greater than the largest term
which does not, or

. So the

th term will be

, then

, then

, then

, and finally

8. Problem
Let be the sum of the base
logarithms of all the proper divisors (all divisors of a number excluding
itself) of
. What is the integer nearest to ?

Solution
Solution 1
The prime factorization of
, so there are
divisors, of which
are
proper. The sum of multiple logarithms of the same base is equal to the logarithm of the products of the
numbers.
Writing out the first few terms, we see that the answer is equal to
Each power
of appears times; and the same goes for . So the overall power
of and is
. However, since the question asks for proper
divisors, we exclude
, so each power is actually
times. The answer is
thus

Solution 2
Since the prime factorization of
is
, the number of factors in
them up into groups of two so each group multiplies to
. Note
that
half the number of divisors of
is
.

is

. You can pair

. Thus, the sum of the logs of the divisors is

(since they are asking only for proper divisors), and the answer

9. Problem
In
,
,
and segments are drawn through
equal length , find .

, and
. An interior point is then drawn,
parallel to the sides of the triangle. If these three segments are of an

Solution
Solution 1 (mass points)

Construct cevians
then has mass
Notice that

has mass

points we find that

and
.

through

. Place masses of

. On the other hand, by similar triangles,

on

and

respectively;

. Hence by mass

Similarly, we obtain
Summing these three equations yields

Hence,

Solution 2

Let the points at which the segments hit the triangle be called
as shown above. As a
result of the lines being parallel, all three smaller triangles and the larger triangle are similar (
). The remaining three sections are parallelograms.
Since
So
logic,

is a parallelogram, we find

, and similarly
. Thus

.
. By the same

Since

, we have the proportion:

Doing the same with

, we find that

Now,

10.

Problem

In a parlorGAME , the magician asks one of the participants to think of a three digit number (abc) where
a, b, and c represent digits in base 10 in the order indicated. The magician then asks this person to form
the numbers (acb), (bca), (bac), (cab), and (cba), to add these five numbers, and to reveal their
sum,

. If told the value of

, the magician can identify the original number, (abc). Play the role of the

magician and determine the (abc) if

Solution
Let

be the number

This reduces

so

to one of 136, 358, 580, 802. But

also
this, namely

. Observe that

so
.

. Only one of the values of

satisfies

11.

Problem

The polynomial

may be written in the

form

, where

value of

and the

's are constants. Find the

Solution
Solution 1

Using the geometric series formula,

this becomes
the

. We want

. Since
, which is the coefficient of the

term in

,
(because

in the denominator reduces the degrees in the numerator by ). By the binomial theorem that

is

Solution 2
Again, notice

. So

We want the coefficient of the

is

to

term of each power of each binomial, which by the binomial theorem

. TheHockey Stick Identity gives us that this quantity is equal

12.

Problem

Let the sum of a set of numbers be the sum of its elements. Let
greater than 15. Suppose no two disjoint subsets of
set

be a set of positive integers, none

have the same sum. What is the largest sum a

with these properties can have?

Solution
The maximum is

, attained when

sum at least 62. Suppose such a set

. We must now prove that no such set has

existed. Then

sum would be at most

But also,

must have more than 4 elements, otherwise its

if it had 4 elements.

can't have at least 6 elements. To see why, note that at

least

of its subsets have at most four elements (the number of

subsets with no elements plus the number of subsets with one element plus the number of subsets with
two elements plus the number of subsets with three elements plus the number of subsets with four
elements), so each of them have sum at most 54. By the Pigeonhole Principle, two of these subsets
would have the same sum, a contradiction to the givens.

Thus,

must have exactly 5 elements.

most

contains both 15 and 14 (otherwise its sum is at

). It follows that

or the subsets

and

cannot contain both

would have the same sum. So now

(otherwise its sum is at most

subsets

and

Now the only way

), and

for any

must contain 13

cannot contain 12, or the

would have the same sum.

could have sum at least

if

and

. But the subsets

work, a contradiction to the givens. Therefore no

would be
and

have the same sum, so this set does not

with sum at least 62 is possible and 61 is indeed the

maximum.

13.

Problem

In a sequence of coin tosses, one can keep a record of instances in which a tail is immediately followed
by a head, a head is immediately followed by a head, and etc. We denote these by TH, HH, and etc. For
example, in the sequence HHTTHHHHTHHTTTT of 15 coin tosses we observe that there are five HH, three HT,
two TH, and four TT subsequences. How many different sequences of 15 coin tosses will contain exactly
two HH, three HT, four TH, and five TT subsequences?

Solution
Let's consider each of the sequences of two coin tosses as an operation instead; this operation takes a
string and adds the next coin toss on (eg, THHTH + HT = THHTHT). We examine what happens to the last
coin toss. Adding HH or TT is simply an identity for the last coin toss, so we will ignore them for now.

However, adding HT or TH switches the last coin. H switches to T three times, but T switches to H four
times; hence it follows that our string will have a structure of THTHTHTH.
Now we have to count all of the different ways we can add the identities back in. There are
5 TT subsequences, which means that we have to add 5 T into the strings, as long as the new Ts are
adjacent to existing Ts. There are already 4 Ts in the sequence, and since order doesnt matter between
different tail flips this just becomes the ball-and-urn argument. We want to add 5 balls into 4 urns, which is

combinations. We do the same with 2 Hs to

the same as 3 dividers; hence this gives

get

combinations; thus there are

14.

possible sequences.

Problem

The shortest distances between an interior diagonal of a rectangular parallelepiped,

does not meet are

, and

. Determine the volume of

, and the edges it

Solution

In the above diagram, we focus on the line that appears closest and is parallel to
are perpendicular lines to

and their other points are on

. All the blue lines

, the main diagonal. The green lines are

projections of the blue lines onto the bottom face; all of the green lines originate in the corner and reach
out to

, and have the same lengths as their corresponding blue lines. So we want to find the shortest

distance between

and that corner, which is

So we have:
Notice the familiar roots:

, which are

, respectively. (This

would give us the guess that the sides are of the ratio 1:2:3, but let's provide the complete solution.)

We invert the above equations to get a system of linear equations in

We see that

15.

. Therefore

, and

Problem

Let triangle

be a right triangle in the xy-plane with a right angle at

the hypotenuse
lines

is

, and that themedians through

and

and

. Given that the length of

lie along the

respectively, find the area of triangle

Solution
Translate so the medians are
.

, and

, then model the points

and

is the centroid, and is the average of the vertices, so

so

(1)
AC and BC are perpendicular, so the product of their slopes is -1, giving

(2)
Combining (1) and (2), we get
Using the determinant product for area of a triangle (this simplifies nicely, add columns 1 and 2, add rows
2 and 3), the area is

, so we get the answer to be