Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / Bulgarian Spring Tournament /7 of 15

Bulgarian Spring Tournament

Geometry Difficulty 5.4 AIME, harder Prove it Bulgaria

Given the triangle ABCABC and MM - midpoint of ABAB. Given the angles ∠ABC=30∘\angle ABC = 30^\circ and ∠BCM=105∘\angle BCM = 105^\circ. Prove that CM⋅AC=BM⋅BCCM \cdot AC = BM \cdot BC.
(Konstantin Delchev)

Solution

Let AA1AA_1 be the height from point AA in △ABC\triangle ABC. Note that it lies on the continuation of BCBC, because this triangle is obtuse. The triangle △AA1B\triangle AA_1B is right-angled with angle 30∘30^\circ. Therefore, AA1=AM=A1M=BM=xAA_1 = AM = A_1M = BM = x. Consequently, we directly find ∠CMB=45∘\angle CMB = 45^\circ, ∠A1MA=60∘\angle A_1MA = 60^\circ, ∠A1MC=75∘\angle A_1MC = 75^\circ, ∠MCA1=75∘\angle MCA_1 = 75^\circ. So △MCA1\triangle MCA_1 is isosceles. Then CA1=xCA_1 = x and △AA1C\triangle AA_1C is isosceles and right-angled, therefore ∠ACA1=45∘\angle ACA_1 = 45^\circ and therefore ∠ACM=30∘\angle ACM = 30^\circ.
We will calculate the area of △ACM\triangle ACM in two different ways.

SACM=AC⋅CM4S_{ACM} = \frac{AC \cdot CM}{4} because ∠ACM=30∘\angle ACM = 30^\circ i.e. the height to ACAC is equal to MC2\frac{MC}{2}. But also MM is the middle of ABAB. So SACM=SABC2=BC⋅AA14=BC⋅BM4S_{ACM} = \frac{S_{ABC}}{2} = \frac{BC \cdot AA_1}{4} = \frac{BC \cdot BM}{4} and we get what we are looking for. □\square

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,604 problems in a working order, from Junior Challenge level to the IMO shortlist.

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