Problem 11 (2011 AIME II) — AIME 2011 · USAMO Guide - Olympiad Mathematics Learning Platform

Problem 11 (2011 AIME II)

AIME 2011

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Understand the scale

Scale 0.5: Easiest math competition problems, often solvable even for early middle school students without experience. 1: Problems strictly for beginners, often at a moderate middle school level. 1.5: Problems for stronger beginner students, on the level of the middling problems in most middle school contests. 2: For motivated beginners, harder questions from the previous categories. 2.5: More advanced beginner problems, hardest questions from previous categories. 3: Early intermediate problems that require more creative thinking. 3.5: Tougher early intermediate problems that consistently stretch into higher-level creative thinking or conceptual knowledge. 4: Intermediate-level problems. 4.5: Upper intermediate problems approaching the upper bound for non-invitational sprint math competitions. 5: More difficult AIME problems or simple proof-based Olympiad-style problems. 6: High-level AIME-styled questions or introductory Olympiad-level questions. 7: Tougher Olympiad-level questions, may require more technical knowledge. 8: High-level Olympiad-level questions. 9: Expert Olympiad-level questions. 9.5: The hardest problems appearing on Olympiads which the strongest students could reasonably solve. 10: Historically notorious problems, generally unsuitable for even very hard competitions because they are exceedingly tedious, long, and difficult.

Problem

Let $M_n$ be the $n \times n$ matrix with entries as follows: for $1 \le i \le n$ , $m_{i,i} = 10$ ; for $1 \le i \le n - 1$ , $m_{i+1,i} = m_{i,i+1} = 3$ ; all other entries in $M_n$ are zero. Let $D_n$ be the determinant of matrix $M_n$ . Then $\sum_{n=1}^{\infty} \frac{1}{8D_n+1}$ can be represented as $\frac{p}{q}$ , where $p$ and $q$ are relatively prime positive integers. Find $p + q$ . Note: The determinant of the $1 \times 1$ matrix $[a]$ is $a$ , and the determinant of the $2 \times 2$ matrix $\left[ {\begin{array}{cc} a & b \\ c & d \\ \end{array} } \right] = ad - bc$ ; for $n \ge 2$ , the determinant of an $n \times n$ matrix with first row or first column $a_1$ $a_2$ $a_3$ $\dots$ $a_n$ is equal to $a_1C_1 - a_2C_2 + a_3C_3 - \dots + (-1)^{n+1}a_nC_n$ , where $C_i$ is the determinant of the $(n - 1) \times (n - 1)$ matrix formed by eliminating the row and column containing $a_i$ .

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