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MathNet #0hsp

MathNetHard

From module Sphere Geometry

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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.
Volume3D ShapesTrigonometryTriangle trigonometry

Problem

Problem:

Let DD be a dodecahedron which can be inscribed in a sphere with radius RR. Let II be an icosahedron which can also be inscribed in a sphere of radius RR. Which has the greater volume, and why?

Note: A regular polyhedron is a geometric solid, all of whose faces are congruent regular polygons, in which the same number of polygons meet at each vertex. A regular dodecahedron is a polyhedron with 12 faces which are regular pentagons and a regular icosahedron is a polyhedron with 20 faces which are equilateral triangles. A polyhedron is inscribed in a sphere if all of its vertices lie on the surface of the sphere.

The illustration below shows a dodecahedron and an icosahedron, not necessarily to scale.

figure

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