Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 6.1 National Olympiad Prove it Taiwan

A finite collection of triangles on the plane are intersecting if, for any two triangles in the collection, the intersection of their interiors is not empty. Show that for any two finite collections of intersecting triangles, there exists a straight line that simultaneously intersects the interiors of all triangles in both collections.

Solution

Take any point PP on the plane, and let θ\ell_\theta be the directed line through PP making an angle θ\theta with the positive xx-axis. Note that for the ii-th collection (i=1,2i = 1,2), the projection of each triangle in the ii-th collection onto θ\ell_\theta is a finite interval, and by the intersecting property, these intervals pairwise intersect. This means that the intersection of the projections of all triangles in the ii-th collection is also a finite interval (this can be proven using convexity or induction¹); let di(θ)d_i(\theta) denote the signed distance from PP to the midpoint of the interval formed by the projection of the ii-th collection (according to the direction of θ\ell_\theta).

Now, note that di(θ)d_i(\theta) is a continuous function of θ\theta, and di(θ+π)=di(θ)d_i(\theta + \pi) = -d_i(\theta). This means that if d1(θ)>d2(θ)d_1(\theta) > d_2(\theta), then d1(θ+π)<d2(θ+π)d_1(\theta + \pi) < d_2(\theta + \pi), so by the Intermediate Value Theorem there exists φ(θ,θ+π)\varphi \in (\theta, \theta + \pi) such that d1(φ)=d2(φ)d_1(\varphi) = d_2(\varphi), and this means that the intersection of the projections onto φ\ell_\varphi of all triangles in both collections is nonempty. Choose any point QQ in this intersection; then it is easy to see that the line through QQ perpendicular to φ\ell_\varphi will pass through the interiors of all triangles in both collections. The same discussion applies to the case d1(θ)<d2(θ)d_1(\theta) < d_2(\theta), and the case d1(θ)=d2(θ)d_1(\theta) = d_2(\theta) is obvious, so the proof is complete.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement translated into English from zh; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.