AMC 12 Mock Exam 5 Problem 8
Problem 8 of 25
In a board game, a player rolls three fair standard six-sided dice and wins the round if the three numbers rolled could be the side lengths of a nondegenerate triangle. (For example, wins, but does not.) What is the probability that the player wins the round?
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Solution
The roll fails exactly when one number is at least the sum of the other two. At most one number can have this property (if , then and , so neither nor can be at least the sum of the other two). So the number of failing rolls is times the number of rolls with .
For (where ) there are pairs and choices of , giving Hence of the rolls fail, and the probability of a triangle is .
Tagged: dice probability, triangle inequality