Skip to main content

2016 AMC 12B Problem 14

Problem 14 of 25IntermediateAlgebra

The sum of an infinite geometric series is a positive number S,S, and the second term in the series is 1.1. What is the smallest possible value of S?S?

Answer choices

Show solution

Solution

Let rr be the common ratio. Since the second term is 1,1, the first term is 1r,\dfrac1r, so S=1r1r=1rr2.S=\dfrac{\frac{1}{r}}{1-r}=\dfrac{1}{r-r^2}. Convergence requires r<1,|r|\lt1, and S>0S\gt0 then forces 0<r<1.0\lt r\lt1. Therefore SS is smallest when rr2r-r^2 is largest. The parabola rr2r-r^2 peaks at r=12,r=\tfrac12, where it equals 14,\tfrac14, so the smallest value of SS is 114=4.\dfrac{1}{\frac{1}{4}}=4. Thus, the correct answer is E.

More practice

Concepts: geometric sequence · quadratic · optimization

Problem text and solution from the LIVE past-contest archive. See also the AoPS wiki page for community solutions.