Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /46 of 52

Geometry Difficulty 7.0 National olympiad, round 2 Prove it Belarus

Let AA1AA_1 be the bisector of the triangle ABCABC. The points DD and FF are chosen on the line BCBC such that A1A_1 is the midpoint of the segment DFDF. A line ll, different from BCBC, passes through A1A_1 and intersects the lines ABAB and ACAC at points B1B_1 and C1C_1, respectively.
Find the locus of the points of intersection of the lines B1DB_1D and C1FC_1F for all possible positions of ll.
(M. Karpuk)

Solution

Answer: The line passing through AA parallel to the line KFKF where KK is the point on ACAC such that AA1K=90\angle AA_1K = 90^\circ (excluding AA, and the intersection points of this line with the line BCBC and the lines passing through FF and DD parallel to ACAC and ABAB, respectively).
Choose the points LL and KK on the lines ABAB and ACAC such that the line KLKL passes through A1A_1 perpendicular to AA1AA_1. The quadrilateral LDKFLDKF is a parallelogram since A1A_1 is the midpoint of the segments DFDF and LKLK. Denote the point of intersection of the lines B1DB_1D and C1FC_1F by SS. Since the points ALSD=B1AL \cap SD = B_1, LKDF=A1LK \cap DF = A_1 and KAFS=C1KA \cap FS = C_1 are concurrent, from the Desargues's theorem it follows that the triangles ALKALK and SDFSDF are centrally perspective with the center — point of intersection of ASAS, LDLD and KFKF. The lines LDLD and KFKF are parallel, so the point SS belongs to the line ss passing through AA parallel to KFKF and LDLD.
On the other hand, take an arbitrary point SS (different from the four points mentioned in the answer) on ss and let B1=SFACB_1 = SF \cap AC and C1=SDABC_1 = SD \cap AB. Since the triangles ALKALK and SDFSDF are centrally perspective, from the Desargues's theorem it follows that they are axially perspective with the axis — line passing through C1C_1, A1A_1 and B1B_1. This axis is the line ll from the problem condition.

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.