Problem 14 (2011 AIME I) — AIME 2011 · USAMO Guide - Olympiad Mathematics Learning Platform

Problem 14 (2011 AIME I)

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 $A_1 A_2 A_3 A_4 A_5 A_6 A_7 A_8$ be a regular octagon. Let $M_1$ , $M_3$ , $M_5$ , and $M_7$ be the midpoints of sides $\overline{A_1 A_2}$ , $\overline{A_3 A_4}$ , $\overline{A_5 A_6}$ , and $\overline{A_7 A_8}$ , respectively. For $i = 1, 3, 5, 7$ , ray $R_i$ is constructed from $M_i$ towards the interior of the octagon such that $R_1 \perp R_3$ , $R_3 \perp R_5$ , $R_5 \perp R_7$ , and $R_7 \perp R_1$ . Pairs of rays $R_1$ and $R_3$ , $R_3$ and $R_5$ , $R_5$ and $R_7$ , and $R_7$ and $R_1$ meet at $B_1$ , $B_3$ , $B_5$ , $B_7$ respectively. If $B_1 B_3 = A_1 A_2$ , then $\cos 2 \angle A_3 M_3 B_1$ can be written in the form $m - \sqrt{n}$ , where $m$ and $n$ are positive integers. Find $m + n$ . Diagram $

$ All distances are to scale.

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