2002 AMC 12B Problems/Problem 18

Problem

A point $P$ is randomly selected from the rectangular region with vertices $(0,0),(2,0),(2,1),(0,1)$ . What is the probability that $P$ is closer to the origin than it is to the point $(3,1)$ ?

The region containing the points closer to $(0,0)$ than to $(3,1)$ is bounded by the perpendicular bisector of the segment with endpoints $(0,0),(3,1)$ . The perpendicular bisector passes through midpoint of $(0,0),(3,1)$ , which is $\left(\frac 32, \frac 12\right)$ , the center of the unit square with coordinates $(1,0),(2,0),(2,1),(1,1)$ . Thus, it cuts the unit square into two equal halves of area $1/2$ . The total area of the rectangle is $2$ , so the area closer to the origin than to $(3,1)$ and in the rectangle is $2 - \frac 12 = \frac 32$ . The probability is $\frac{3/2}{2} = \frac 34 \Rightarrow \mathrm{(C)}$ .