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Geometry Difficulty 6.5 National Olympiad Prove it United States

Let kk be a real number such that the system
25+20iz=5z4k=z3ik \begin{aligned} |25 + 20i - z| &= 5 \\ |z - 4 - k| &= |z - 3i - k| \end{aligned}
has exactly one complex solution zz. The sum of all possible values of kk can be written as mn\frac{m}{n}, where mm and nn are relatively prime positive integers. Find m+nm+n. Here i=1i = \sqrt{-1}.

Solution

Geometrically, ab|a-b| represents the distance between complex numbers aa and bb in the complex plane. Thus (25+20i)z=5|(25+20i)-z| = 5 means that the distance from 25+20i25+20i to zz is 55. The set of solutions for zz is then a circle with radius 55 and center 25+20i25+20i. Similarly, z(4+k)=z(k+3i)|z-(4+k)| = |z-(k+3i)| means that the distance from zz to 4+k4+k equals the distance from zz to k+3ik+3i. Geometrically, the set of points equidistant from two fixed points AA and BB is the perpendicular bisector of AB\overline{AB}. Thus the solution set for this equation is the line that is the perpendicular bisector of the segment connecting 4+k4+k and k+3ik+3i.

Any intersection of the circle from the first equation and the line from the second equation is a solution to the system of equations. For the system to have exactly one complex solution, the line and the circle must be tangent. There are two such lines, 1\ell_1 and 2\ell_2, as shown below.
Figure 1

Switching to Cartesian coordinates, for any kk, the slope of the line between (k,3)(k, 3) and (4+k,0)(4+k, 0) equals 34-\frac{3}{4}, and hence the slopes of lines 1\ell_1 and 2\ell_2 are both equal to 43\frac{4}{3}. Because line 1\ell_1 passes through (2+k1,32)(2+k_1, \frac{3}{2}), the equation of this line is
y32=43(x(2+k1)), y - \frac{3}{2} = \frac{4}{3}(x - (2 + k_1)),
and the xx-coordinate of its xx-intercept is k1+78k_1 + \frac{7}{8}. Similarly, the xx-coordinate of the xx-intercept of 2\ell_2 is k2+78k_2 + \frac{7}{8}.

The line 3\ell_3, parallel to lines 1\ell_1 and 2\ell_2, whose xx-intercept is the midpoint of the xx-intercepts of lines 1\ell_1 and 2\ell_2, passes through the center of the circle, which is at (25,20)(25, 20). Thus the equation of line 3\ell_3 is
y20=43(x25), y - 20 = \frac{4}{3}(x - 25),
and the xx-coordinate of its xx-intercept is 1010.

Therefore
k1+k22+78=10, \frac{k_1 + k_2}{2} + \frac{7}{8} = 10,
from which k1+k2=734k_1 + k_2 = \frac{73}{4}. The requested sum is 73+4=7773 + 4 = 77.

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