Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 3.1 AMC 10/12 Find the answer Netherlands

Tim has exactly six meters of iron wire. He cuts the iron wire into a number of pieces, in such a way that each piece is an integer number of meters long. From each of those pieces, he makes a circle. Then he stacks those circles perfectly vertically balancing on top of each other. A possible front view is shown in the figure to the right.
Figure 1
How many possible heights can his structure have?

A number or a short expression. Fractions can be typed as 3/2, and spacing doesn't matter.

Solution

1

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.