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Geometry Difficulty 5.5 AIME, harder Prove it Ukraine

In the triangle ABCABC, HH is a midpoint of the altitude ADAD and OO is a centre of the circumscribed circle. A line perpendicular to the line HOHO passing through HH intersects ABAB and ACAC at PP and QQ respectively. Prove that the midpoints of BPBP, CQCQ and OO are collinear.

Solution

Define MCM_C and MBM_B as midpoints of ABAB and ACAC respectively. Then HH lies on the line MBMCM_B M_C due to its initial position. Note that projections of OO on the lines ABAB, ACAC and PQPQ are points MCM_C, MBM_B and HH which lie on the Simson line (Fig 33). From this can be concluded that OO lies on the circumscribed circle of the PAQ\triangle PAQ.

Intersect a ray HOHO with the line BCBC in a point SS. Observe that OMBMCHBC\triangle OM_B M_C \sim \triangle HBC as they have the same angles. Also, OHMB=HSB\angle OHM_B = \angle HSB, so SS and HH are respective vertices of the similar triangles. Since BC=2MBMCBC = 2M_B M_C, we have that SC=2MCH=BDSC = 2M_C H = BD. Hence, points SS and DD are symmetric over BCBC.

Name midpoints of BPBP and CQCQ as P1P_1 and Q1Q_1 respectively. Define C1C_1 as a symmetric point of CC over DD. Therefore, can deduce that
OQC=OHMB=OSC1=HSC1 and OCA=90B=HCB=HC1S, \angle OQC = \angle OHM_B = \angle OSC_1 = \angle HSC_1 \text{ and } \angle OCA = 90^\circ - \angle B = \angle HCB = \angle HC_1S,
which means that HSC1OQC\triangle HSC_1 \sim \triangle OQC. Let XX be a midpoint of the SC1SC_1. From C1D=DC=BSC_1D = DC = BS, we have that the midpoints of the SC1SC_1 and BDBD coincide, so XX is also the midpoint of the BDBD. From the previously described similarity HSC1OQC\triangle HSC_1 \sim \triangle OQC we get that OQ1A=HXS\angle OQ_1A = \angle HXS (an angle between a median and a side) and OQ1A=HXS=B\angle OQ_1A = \angle HXS = \angle B (midline). Similarly,

OP1A=C\angle OP_1A = \angle C. From the angle sum A+B+C=180\angle A + \angle B + \angle C = 180^\circ we conclude that P1,OP_1, O and Q1Q_1

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