MathDB

Square

ABCD

has side length

4

. Points

E

and

F

are the midpoints of sides

AB

and

CD

, respectively. Eight

1

2

rectangles are placed inside the square so that no two of the eight rectangles overlap (see diagram). If the arrangement of eight rectangles is chosen randomly, then there are relatively prime positive integers

m

and

n

so that

\tfrac{m}{n}

is the probability that none of the rectangles crosses the line segment

EF

(as in the arrangement on the right). Find

m + n

.
[asy] size(200); defaultpen(linewidth(0.8)+fontsize(10pt)); real r = 7; path square=origin--(4,0)--(4,4)--(0,4)--cycle; draw(square^^shift((r,0))*square,linewidth(1)); draw((1,4)--(1,0)^^(3,4)--(3,0)^^(0,2)--(1,2)^^(1,3)--(3,3)^^(1,1)--(3,1)^^(2,3)--(2,1)^^(3,2)--(4,2)); draw(shift((r,0))*((2,4)--(2,0)^^(0,2)--(4,2)^^(0,1)--(4,1)^^(0,3)--(2,3)^^(3,4)--(3,2))); label("A",(4,4),NE); label("A",(4+r,4),NE); label("B",(0,4),NW); label("B",(r,4),NW); label("C",(0,0),SW); label("C",(r,0),SW); label("D",(4,0),SE); label("D",(4+r,0),SE); label("E",(2,4),N); label("E",(2+r,4),N); label("F",(2,0),S); label("F",(2+r,0),S); [/asy]

Problem Statement