Suppose 4 sides AB, BC, CD, DA of a quadrilateral ABCD are tangent to a circle with its center O, and conditions OA=5,OB=6,OC=7,OD=8 are satisfied. Let M, N be the midpoint of the line segments AC, BD respectively. Find the value of OM:ON. Here for a line segment XY its length is also denoted by XY.
Solution
Let P, Q, R, S be the points of tangency of the given circle to the sides DA, AB, BC, CD, respectively. Let, also A′, B′, C′, D′ be the midpoints of the line segments PQ, QR, RS, SP, respectively. Note that A′, B′, C′, D′ lie on the line segments OA, OB, OC, OD, respectively. Denote the length of the radius of the circle by r.
Since ∠APO=∠PA′O=90∘ and ∠AOP=∠POA′, the triangles APO and PA′O are similar, and therefore, we have AO:PO=PO:A′O. From this we obtain AO′=AOPO2=AOr2. Similarly, we get C′O=rC′O. Hence, we have AO:CO=C′O:A′O and since ∠AOC=∠C′OA′, we see that the triangles AOC and C′OA′ are similar. This similarity carries the point M to the midpoint M′ of the line segment A′C′, and therefore, we have OM=OM′⋅C′OAO=OM′⋅r2AO⋅CO.
In the same way, we conclude that if we denote by N′ the midpoint of the line segment B′D′ then ON=ON′⋅r2BO⋅DO. We see that OM′=21(OA′+OC′)=41(OP+OQ+OR+OS)=21(OB′+OD′)=ON′
holds, and therefore, we conclude that M′=N′. Putting these facts together, we get OM:ON=OM′⋅r2AO⋅CO:ON′⋅r2BO⋅DO=AO⋅CO:BO⋅DO=35:48, which gives the desired answer.
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