The incircle of an acute triangle touches the sides , and at , and . Let , and be the incircles of the triangles , and .
Let denote the common tangent of and which intersects the segments and but not the segment . Let be the common tangent of and which intersects the segments and but not the segment and let be the common tangent of and which intersects the segments and but not the segment .
Prove that the lines , and intersect at a single point.
Solutions — 2
Solution 1
With this kind of problems it is very important to draw a big figure and try to see if there is anything we can say about the common intersection. First, we notice that the centres of , and lie on the incircle of the triangle .
Let be the point where the bisector of the angle intersects for the second time ( is the midpoint of the arc ). Then , and the tangent-chord theorem implies that . So, and is the bisector of the angle . On the other hand, is the bisector of the angle , so is the incentre of the triangle .
As we draw the line onto the figure we notice that the common intersection of the tangents lies on this line. Let and be the centres of and . If we also draw and , we see that they contain the common intersection of the tangents as well. The lines , and are the bisectors of the inner angles of the triangle and they meet in a point we denote by . We wish to prove that each of the tangents , and also contains .

Since is the intersection of the angle bisectors of the triangle , we have
and

Hence, the triangles and are similar. They also have a common side, so they are congruent. Reflect the outer tangent to the circles and in the line connecting the two centres. We have just shown that this reflection maps to . It also maps the tangent into a tangent passing through the image of . This implies that lies on . Similarly, we show that lies on and . We conclude that the three tangents intersect at a single point.
Solution 2
Let us find another way of describing the tangent . We have noticed that it contains . The figure also suggests that is parallel to . Let be the line through parallel to . We wish to show that is tangent to and .

Let us draw a less cluttered figure. We will not need the circles and . Let be the point on such that is perpendicular to . We wish to show that is the diameter of .
First, let us find the angle . Since is parallel to , we have . Let be the midpoint of . We wish to show that . We have , so the triangles and are similar. We wish to show that they are congruent, so or . The second equality is equivalent to the fact that is an isosceles triangle with the apex at . Let . Then
Clearly, , so the third angle in the triangle is equal to . The triangle is isosceles with the apex at , so and the triangles and are congruent. So, and (or ) is tangent to . Similarly, we show that is tangent to , so . The same arguments would show that is the line through parallel to and is the line through parallel to . Hence, all three tangents intersect at a single point, namely .