A right rectangular prism P (i.e., a rectangular parallelpiped) has sides of integral length a,b,c, with a≤b≤c. A plane parallel to one of the faces of P cuts P into two prisms, one of which is similar to P, and both of which have nonzero volume. Given that b=1995, for how many ordered triples (a,b,c) does such a plane exist?
A number or a short expression. Fractions can be typed as 3/2, and spacing doesn't matter.
Let P′ be the prism similar to P, and let the sides of P′ be of length x,y,z, such that x≤y≤z. Then ax=by=cz<1. Note that if the ratio of similarity was equal to 1, we would have a prism with zero volume. As one face of P′ is a face of P, it follows that P and P′ share at least two side lengths in common. Since x<a,y<b,z<c, it follows that the only possibility is y=a,z=b=1995. Then, ax=1995a=c1995⟹ac=19952=325272192. The number of factors of 325272192 is (2+1)(2+1)(2+1)(2+1)=81. Only in ⌊281⌋=40 of these cases is a<c (for a=c, we end with a prism of zero volume). We can easily verify that these will yield nondegenerate prisms, so the answer is 040.
Source: NuminaMath-1.5,
licensed Apache-2.0.
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