Let be an isosceles triangle with . The incircle of has centre , and it is tangent to the sides and at and respectively. Let be the circumcircle of . The two external common tangents of and intersect at a point . If one of these external common tangents is parallel to , prove that .
Solution
Since , the point lies on and the centre of is the midpoint of . Note that lies on the line joining the centres of and . In other words, lies on the line . As , the line is simply the internal angle bisector of . In order to show that is perpendicular to the angle bisector of , it is the same as proving is the excentre of opposite to the vertex .

Let be the point on such that is tangent to and . Since the tangents at and to are parallel, is a diameter of . This shows is the midpoint of . It follows from that . Thus, . Together with , we find that .
Note that is the centre of homothety between and . Therefore, is the ratio of similitude, i.e. the ratio of the diameters of the two circles. Thus, we have .
Let be the midpoint of . As , is also the contact point of with . From , we obtain . Therefore, . Let so that .
Let be the -excentre of . Our goal is to show that , so that as desired. Firstly, since and by the angle bisector theorem, we have
Secondly, we have by the external angle bisector theorem. It follows that
Therefore, , and we are done.