1

Triangle with restricted angle sum

Problem
1. Can you draw a triangle in which the sum of any two
anglesno matter which two you pickis less than 120

?
Explain how you can, or why you can not.
Problems with a Point: January 17, 2001 c EDC 2000
Triangle with restricted angle sum: Hints 1
Hints
Hint to problem 1. Suppose that you can draw such a trian-
gle. Try to work out its angles.
Problems with a Point: January 17, 2001 c EDC 2000
Triangle with restricted angle sum: Answers 1
Answers
1. There is no triangle on the plane in which the sum of any
two angles is less than 120

.
Problems with a Point: January 17, 2001 c EDC 2000
Triangle with restricted angle sum: Solutions 1
Solutions
1. Here are two ways of thinking about this problem. Both In a proof by contradiction,
you assume some proposition is
true. Then, if solid, logical
reasoning based on that
proposition leads to a
contradiction, that forces you to
admit that the initial proposition
was not true.
involve what is called proof by contradiction.
Examining each angle: The sum of all three angles in a
triangle is 180

, so the only way for the sum of two of them

to be less than 120

is for the third to be greater than 60

.
IF we could draw a triangle in which the sum of any two
angles is less than 120

, THEN every angle would have

to be greater than 60

(because the sum of the other two

< 120

). This conclusion makes no sense! Its impossible

This would also mean that the
sum of any two of them would be
greater than 120

!
for all three angles to be greater than 60

, because their
sum would then be greater than 180

!
This means that we cannot draw such a triangle because
we have seen that IF we could THEN we arrive at a
nonsensical conclusion full of contradictions.
An equivalent algebraic approach: Again, lets sup-
pose that we can draw a triangle in which the sum of any
two angles is less than 120

.
2
1
3
A
B
C
We can write down the three conditions that must simul-
taneously be true:

1 +

2 < 120

and

1 +

3 < 120

and

2 +

3 < 120

.
Adding all three expressions on the left side, we get:

1 +

2 +

1 +

3 +

2 +

3 = 2

1 + 2

2 + 2

3 =
2(

1 +

2 +

3) = 2 180

= 360

At the same time, if our conditions (and our initial assump-

tion) were true, then the sum of the three expressions on
the left should be less than 360

, because each of them had

to be less than 120

. A contradiction! One way of adding

shows that this sum equals 360

; the other way shows it

must be less than 360

. Where can we have gone wrong?!

Only in our initial assumption that all three conditions can
be true simultaneously.
This proves that there is no triangle on the plane in which
a sum of any two angles is less than 120

.
Problems with a Point: January 17, 2001 c EDC 2000