Problem:
Let be a regular hexagon with as a point in its interior. Prove that of the three values , , and , two of them sum to the third one.
, 2024
Solutions — 3
Solution 1
Solution:
WLOG let the side length of the hexagon be 1. Let be the center of the hexagon. Consider drawing in the circles , , and . Note that lies on the radical axis of all three circles, since . Since also lies on the radical axis, all three circles are coaxial.
Let , , and be the centers of , , and , respectively. Since the circles are coaxial, , , and are collinear. WLOG lies on segment . Note that , . Similarly, we have . Now, inverting at and using van Schooten's Theorem gives that .
Furthermore, we have
Similarly, we have and . Therefore, two of these tangent values sum to the third, as desired.
Solution 2
Solution:
Firstly, note that , , and are diameters of the circle , so the angles , , are all obtuse. Therefore, the desired tangents are well-defined.
WLOG let the side length of the hexagon be 1. Let be the center of the hexagon, and let . Finally, let .
Now, by Law of Cosines, we have and . Now, by Law of Cosines again we have
Similarly, and are and , respectively (here we are using directed angles). Therefore, the desired three values are
We can scale down the tangent values by to get . Now, consider an equilateral triangle with vertices at the third roots of unity rotated by degrees counterclockwise. The three values represent the distances from the three vertices to the real axis. Since the centroid of this triangle is the origin (lying on the real axis), two of these quantities must sum to the third, as desired.
Solution 3
Solution:
We will show either the three sum to 0 or two of them sum to the third one; since they're all negative, the former case is actually impossible.
Let be the unit circle, with , , and so on, where . Then is the argument of
Then is the imaginary part divided by the real part of this, which is
for some constant . (Note that might actually be the negative of this, depending on direction; this is why we added the remark at the beginning about them possibly summing to 0.)
Similarly, and . It suffices to show that two , , and sum to the third. However, this is easy; without loss of generality let be inside , and let the hexagon have side length 1. Then
as desired.