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Geometry Difficulty 4.5 AIME Prove it Ireland

Let ABCABC be a triangle and DD, EE, FF points on the circumcircle of triangle ABCABC so that ADAD, BEBE and CFCF are diameters of the circumcircle. The lines AEAE, BFBF and CDCD form a triangle ABCA'B'C'. Prove that ABC\triangle ABC is similar to ABC\triangle A'B'C'.

Solution

Let AA' be the intersection of AEAE and CDCD. Because BEBE and ADAD are diameters, BAA\angle BAA' and ACA\angle ACA' are right angles. Hence, BAC+CAA=90=AAC+CAA\angle BAC + \angle CAA' = 90^\circ = \angle AA'C + \angle CAA'. This implies BAC=AAC\angle BAC = \angle AA'C. Similarly, we obtain CBA=BBA\angle CBA = \angle BB'A and ACB=CCB\angle ACB = \angle CC'B, hence the triangles ABCABC and ABCA'B'C are similar.

Figure 1

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