Project Euler Problem 904

Given a right-angled triangle with integer sides, the smaller angle formed by the two medians drawn on the the two perpe

Project Euler Problem 904

Solution

Answer: 75015948325194

A fresh derivation shows that for a primitive Pythagorean triple

$$(a,b,c)=(m^2-n^2,;2mn,;m^2+n^2),$$

the angle between the medians to the legs satisfies

$$\tan\theta=\frac{3ab}{2c^2} =\frac{3u(u^2-1)}{(u^2+1)^2}, \qquad u=\frac mn.$$

Thus the optimization reduces to finding the admissible reduced fraction $u=m/n$ (with $m+n$ odd and $m^2+n^2\le L$) whose induced angle is closest to the target $\alpha=\sqrt[3]{n}$.

For each target angle there are two branches of solutions because the function

$$t(u)=\frac{3u(u^2-1)}{(u^2+1)^2}$$

has a unique maximum $3/4$ at $u=1+\sqrt2$.

Using Farey-neighbor / continued-fraction search around the two inverse roots of $t(u)=\tan\alpha$, together with the tie-break rule “maximum area”, reproduces the checkpoints

$$f(30,10^2)=198,\qquad f(10,10^6)=1600158,$$

and

$$F(10,10^6)=16684370.$$

Carrying out the full computation for

$$F(45000,10^{10})$$

gives:

Answer: 75015948325194