2017 AMC 12B Problem 13
Problem 13 of 25Intermediate
In the figure below, of the disks are to be painted blue, are to be painted red, and is to be painted green. Two paintings that can be obtained from one another by a rotation or a reflection of the entire figure are considered the same. How many different paintings are possible?

Answer choices
Show solution
Solution
Before accounting for symmetry, there are paintings. The two nonidentity rotations partition the disks into two -cycles, so neither can fix a painting having color counts
Each of the reflections fixes disks and swaps the other in pairs. For a painting to be fixed, the lone green disk and one of the blue disks must occupy the two fixed positions, in orders. Of the two swapped pairs, either one can be the red pair, giving fixed paintings per reflection. Burnside’s Lemma therefore gives distinct paintings.
Thus, the correct answer is D.