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Macedonian Mathematical Competitions

Geometry Difficulty 4.8 AIME Prove it North Macedonia

The height of isosceles trapeze equals to hh and his area to h2h^2. What is the measure of the angle between the two diagonals?

Solution

Let ABCDABCD be the isosceles trapeze with height hh and area P=h2P = h^2. Let SS be the intersection point of the diagonals and S′S' and S′′S'' are the bases of the altitudes from SS to ABAB and CDCD correspondently. The triangles SS′′DSS''D and SS′BSS'B are similar because they have equal angles. So we get that SS′′‾:DS‾=SS′‾:BS′‾\overline{SS''} : \overline{DS} = \overline{SS'} : \overline{BS'}. Let aa and bb be the lengths of ABAB and CDCD correspondently and SS′‾=h1\overline{SS'} = h_1, SS′′‾=h2\overline{SS''} = h_2. Then we have that h1+h2=hh_1 + h_2 = h and h2:b2=h1:a2h_2 : \frac{b}{2} = h_1 : \frac{a}{2}. Hence a2=b2h1h2\frac{a}{2} = \frac{b}{2} \frac{h_1}{h_2}. (1)

From the condition in the problem we have a+b2h=h2\frac{a+b}{2} h = h^2, or a+b2=h\frac{a+b}{2} = h. From the equality (1) and the last equality we have b2h1h2+b2=h\frac{b}{2} \frac{h_1}{h_2} + \frac{b}{2} = h i.e. b2=h2\frac{b}{2} = h_2. Similarly a2=h1\frac{a}{2} = h_1. So SS′′DSS''D and SS′BSS'B are isosceles and right-angled triangles. The angle between the diagonals is right angle.

Figure 1

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