Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.5 AIME, harder Prove it Croatia

The incircle of the acute triangle ABCABC touches the segments BCBC, CACA, ABAB at points DD, EE, FF respectively. Let SS be the incenter and PP be the intersection of the line DSDS and the segment EFEF. If MM is the midpoint of the segment BCBC prove that the points AA, PP and MM are collinear.

Solution

Since quadrilaterals BFSDBFSD and CDSECDSE are cyclic, we have FSD=180β\angle FSD = 180^\circ - \beta and ESD=180γ\angle ESD = 180^\circ - \gamma so FSP=β\angle FSP = \beta and ESP=γ\angle ESP = \gamma.
Figure 1
Let x=FAPx = \angle FAP and y=BAMy = \angle BAM. Then EAP=αx\angle EAP = \alpha - x and CAM=αy\angle CAM = \alpha - y.
Applying the law of sines on triangles EAPEAP and FAPFAP we get
EPsin(αx)=AEsin(APE),FPsinx=AFsin(APF). \frac{|EP|}{\sin(\alpha - x)} = \frac{|AE|}{\sin(\angle APE)}, \quad \frac{|FP|}{\sin x} = \frac{|AF|}{\sin(\angle APF)}.
Dividing those two equalities because of AE=AF|AE| = |AF| and APE+APF=180\angle APE + \angle APF = 180^\circ we get
sinxsin(αx)=FPEP. \frac{\sin x}{\sin(\alpha - x)} = \frac{|FP|}{|EP|}.
Applying the law of sines on triangles EPSEPS and FPSFPS we get
EPsin(PSE)=SPsin(PES),FPsin(PSF)=SPsin(PFS) \frac{|EP|}{\sin(\angle PSE)} = \frac{|SP|}{\sin(\angle PES)}, \quad \frac{|FP|}{\sin(\angle PSF)} = \frac{|SP|}{\sin(\angle PFS)}
i.e.
EPsinγ=SPsinα2,FPsinβ=SPsinα2soEPFP=sinγsinβ. \frac{|EP|}{\sin \gamma} = \frac{|SP|}{\sin \frac{\alpha}{2}}, \quad \frac{|FP|}{\sin \beta} = \frac{|SP|}{\sin \frac{\alpha}{2}} \quad \text{so} \quad \frac{|EP|}{|FP|} = \frac{\sin \gamma}{\sin \beta}.

Observing the triangles ABMABM and ACMACM we see that:
BMsiny=AMsinβ,CMsin(αy)=AMsinγ \frac{|BM|}{\sin y} = \frac{|AM|}{\sin \beta}, \quad \frac{|CM|}{\sin(\alpha - y)} = \frac{|AM|}{\sin \gamma}
so
sinysin(αy)=sinβsinγ. \frac{\sin y}{\sin(\alpha - y)} = \frac{\sin \beta}{\sin \gamma}.
From all of the above we obtain the equation
sinxsin(αx)=sinysin(αy) \frac{\sin x}{\sin(\alpha - x)} = \frac{\sin y}{\sin(\alpha - y)}
from which we can deduce that x=yx = y.

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