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Geometry Difficulty 6.3 National Olympiad Prove it North Macedonia

From a point inside the equilateral triangle ABCABC are drawn perpendicular lines to the sides ABAB, BCBC and CACA. The lengths of these lines are mm, nn, pp and the length of the side of the triangle ABCABC is equal to aa. Find the ratio of the areas of the triangle ABCABC and the triangle formed with the points of the intersection of the perpendicular lines and sides.

Solution

Let PP be arbitrary point inside the triangle ABCABC. The points KK, LL and MM are points of intersection of the perpendicular lines passing through the point PP to the sides ABAB, BCBC and CACA respectively. Since
PKB=PLB=PLC=PMC=PMA=AKP=90, \angle PKB = \angle PLB = \angle PLC = \angle PMC = \angle PMA = \angle AKP = 90^\circ,
the quadrilaterals AKPMAKPM, BLPKBLPK and CLPMCLPM are cyclic quadrilaterals. From this we get KPL=LPM=MPK=120\angle KPL = \angle LPM = \angle MPK = 120^\circ because the angles in the triangle ABCABC are equal to 6060^\circ. Since PK=p\overline{PK} = p, PL=m\overline{PL} = m and PM=n\overline{PM} = n we obtain
PLPK=12mpsin120=34mp, P_{\angle LPK} = \frac{1}{2} mp \sin 120^\circ = \frac{\sqrt{3}}{4} mp,
PLPM=12mnsin120=34mn, P_{\angle LPM} = \frac{1}{2} mn \sin 120^\circ = \frac{\sqrt{3}}{4} mn,
PMPK=12npsin120=34np. P_{\angle MPK} = \frac{1}{2} np \sin 120^\circ = \frac{\sqrt{3}}{4} np.
The area of the triangle KLMKLM is equal to
PΔKLM=PΔKPL+PΔLPM+PΔMPK=34(pm+mn+np) P_{\Delta KLM} = P_{\Delta KPL} + P_{\Delta LPM} + P_{\Delta MPK} = \frac{\sqrt{3}}{4} (pm + mn + np)
Because the area of the triangle ABCABC is
PΔABC=34a2, we obtain PΔABCPΔKLM=34a234(pm+mn+np)=a2pm+mn+np. P_{\Delta ABC} = \frac{\sqrt{3}}{4} a^2, \text{ we obtain } \frac{P_{\Delta ABC}}{P_{\Delta KLM}} = \frac{\frac{\sqrt{3}}{4} a^2}{\frac{\sqrt{3}}{4} (pm + mn + np)} = \frac{a^2}{pm + mn + np}.

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