Teacher Ciph16

Sponsored by: UGA Math Department and UGA Math Club
Ciphering Round / 2 minutes per problem

October 22, 2016
WITH SOLUTIONS
Problem 1. A rectangular prism has edge lengths 6, 8, and 24. What is the length
of the interior diagonal?
Answer. 26
√ √
Solution. By the distance formula, the answer is 62 + 82 + 242 = 676 = 26. To
simplify the arithmetic, use instead a box with edge lengths 3, 4, and 12, and take
advantage of the familiar Pythagorean triples 3, 4, 5 and 5, 12, 13.
Problem 2. What is the perimeter of the polygon? All

angles are 90◦ .
Answer. 72
Solution. The perimeter is the same as this polygon:

Problem 3. Start with a square. Connect the midpoints of
adjacent sides to form a second square. Connect the midpoints
of the second square to form a third square. What is the ratio
of the area of the first square to the area of the third?
Answer. 4
Solution. In the diagram to the right, the areas of the two

shaded triangles are equal. This shows that the area of the
nth square is twice the area of the (n + 1)st, and so the area
of the nth square is 2k times the (n + k)th. This question is
the k = 2 case.
Problem 4. What is the area of the shaded region? The

curves are arcs of circles of radius 1, centered at the vertices,
and the triangle has side lengths 3, 4, 5.
5
4
3
π 12 − π
Answer. 6 − or
2 2
Solution. The area of the triangle is 12 · 3 · 4 = 6. The three circular sectors combine
for an angle of 180◦ , and so their combined area is 12 π · r2 = π2 . So the total area is
6 − π2 .
Problem 5. Solve for x:

e2x − 4ex+1 + 4e2 = 0.
Answer. ln(2e) or 1 + ln(2)
Solution. This factors as (ex − 2e)2 , and so ex = 2e, i.e., x = ln(2e) = 1 + ln(2).
Problem 6. 10 apples and 5 bananas cost $45. 5 apples and 10 bananas cost $30.
What is the difference between the price of an apple and the price of a banana?
Answer. $3 (i.e., 3 dollars)
Solution. Let A be the cost of an apple and B the cost of a banana. The given
information shows that
10A + 5B = 45,
5A + 10B = 30.
Subtract, then divide by 5:
5A − 5B = 15,
A − B = 3.
Note that we did not need to solve for A and B individually.
Problem 7. If you know that the real number x is closer to 10 than to 15, and closer
to 3 than to 2, what is the length of the interval in which x can lie?
Answer. 10
Solution. “Closer to 10 than to 15” simply means x < 12.5. Similarly, “closer to 3
than to 2” means x > 2.5. So x lies in the interval (2.5, 12.5), which has length 10.
Problem 8. Mo gave a 10 question quiz to 40 students. So far he has graded all of

the questions on 51 of the quizzes, and 15 of the questions on the rest of the quizzes.
What percentage of the questions has he graded?
Answer. 36%
Solution. You can simply compute the number of questions (out of 400 total) that
have been graded:
1 1
all of the questions on of the quizzes: 10 · · 40 = 80.
5 5
1 1 4
of the questions on the rest of the quizzes: ( · 10) · ( · 40) = 64.
5 5 5
144
So he’s graded 400 = 36% of the questions.
Alternatively, you can think in terms of probability. A problem has not been
graded if it’s not on one of the quizzes that’s been completely graded (p = 4/5) and
it’s not in the 1/5 of the problems on each test that have been graded (also p = 4/5).
So it’s not been graded with probability (4/5)2 = 16/25 = 64%; i.e., 36% of problems
have been graded.
Problem 9. If x, y, and z are positive integers satisfying 2x + 2y = 2z and 2x · 2y =
2z+1 , then what is z?
Answer. 3 (or z = 3)
Solution. We observe first that 2x + 2y = 2z implies that x = y. For example, if

x > y, then 2x + 2y = 2y (2x−y + 1), which would make 2x−y + 1 an odd factor of 2z .
Similarly, we cannot have x < y.
Since x = y, we have 2z = 2x + 2x = 2x+1 , so that z = x + 1. Substituting x = y =
z − 1 into the second given equation yields 22z−2 = 2z+1 , and hence 2z − 2 = z + 1,
so that z = 3.
Problem 10. What is the smallest positive integer that has exactly 10 factors? (Hint:
It is not 6, which has 4 factors: 1, 2, 3, and 6.)
Answer. 48
Solution. A reasonable first guess is 29 , which has the 10 divisors 20 , 21 , . . . , 29 . But

24 · 3 is smaller and has the 10 divisors 20 , 21 , 22 , . . . , 24 , 20 · 3, 21 · 3, . . . , 24 · 3. To
see that 24 · 3 is the smallest possible, recall that if p1 , . . . , pk are distinct primes and
e1 , . . . , ek are positive integers, then the number of divisors of n is (e1 + 1) · · · (ek + 1).
So a number with 10 divisors is either of the form p9 for a prime p, or of the form p4 q
for distinct primes p, q. The smallest solution of the first kind is clearly 29 , while the
smallest solution of the second kind is 24 · 31 = 48.
Authors. Written by Mo Hendon, Paul Pollack, Luca Schaffler, and Peter

Woolfitt.

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Sponsored by: UGA Math Department and UGA Math Club

Ciphering Round / 2 minutes per problem

Problem 2. What is the perimeter of the polygon? All

Solution. The perimeter is the same as this polygon:

Solution. In the diagram to the right, the areas of the two

Problem 4. What is the area of the shaded region? The

Problem 5. Solve for x:

Answer. ln(2e) or 1 + ln(2)

Subtract, then divide by 5:

Note that we did not need to solve for A and B individually.

Problem 8. Mo gave a 10 question quiz to 40 students. So far he has graded all of

Solution. We observe first that 2x + 2y = 2z implies that x = y. For example, if

Solution. A reasonable first guess is 29 , which has the 10 divisors 20 , 21 , . . . , 29 . But

Authors. Written by Mo Hendon, Paul Pollack, Luca Schaffler, and Peter

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