Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 8.0 National Olympiad, round 2 Prove it United States

Let ABCDABCD be a quadrilateral circumscribed about a circle, whose interior and exterior angles are at least 6060^{\circ}. Prove that
13AB3AD3BC3CD33AB3AD3. \frac{1}{3} |AB^3 - AD^3| \leq |BC^3 - CD^3| \leq 3|AB^3 - AD^3|.
When does equality hold?

Solution

By symmetry, we only need to prove the first inequality.
Because quadrilateral ABCDABCD has an incircle, we have AB+CD=BC+ADAB + CD = BC + AD, or ABAD=BCCDAB - AD = BC - CD. It suffices to prove that
13(AB2+ABAD+AD2)BC2+BCCD+CD2. \frac{1}{3}(AB^2 + AB \cdot AD + AD^2) \leq BC^2 + BC \cdot CD + CD^2.
By the given condition, 60A,C12060^{\circ} \leq \angle A, \angle C \leq 120^{\circ}, and so 12cosA,cosC12\frac{1}{2} \geq \cos A, \cos C \geq -\frac{1}{2}. Applying the Law of Cosines to triangle ABDABD yields
BD2=AB22ABADcosA+AD2AB2ABAD+AD213(AB2+ABAD+AD2). \begin{aligned} BD^2 &= AB^2 - 2AB \cdot AD \cos A + AD^2 \\ &\geq AB^2 - AB \cdot AD + AD^2 \\ &\geq \frac{1}{3}(AB^2 + AB \cdot AD + AD^2). \end{aligned}
The last inequality is equivalent to the inequality 3AB23ABAD+3AD2AB2+ABAD+AD23AB^2 - 3AB \cdot AD + 3AD^2 \geq AB^2 + AB \cdot AD + AD^2, or AB22ABAD+AD20AB^2 - 2AB \cdot AD + AD^2 \geq 0, which is evident. The last equality holds if and only if AB=ADAB = AD.

On the other hand, applying the Law of Cosines to triangle BCDBCD yields
BD2=BC22BCCDcosC+CD2BC2+BCCD+CD2. BD^2 = BC^2 - 2BC \cdot CD \cos C + CD^2 \leq BC^2 + BC \cdot CD + CD^2.
Combining the last two inequalities gives the desired result.

For the given inequalities to have equality, we must have AB=ADAB = AD. This condition is also sufficient, because all the entries in the equalities are 0. Thus, equality holds if and only if ABCDABCD is a kite with AB=ADAB = AD and BC=CDBC = CD.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.