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First Round of the 73rd Czech and Slovak Mathematical Olympiad (take-home part)

Geometry Difficulty 4.9 AIME Prove it Czech Republic

Let TT be the centroid of a triangle ABCABC. Consider two isosceles right-angled triangles BTKBTK and CTLCTL so that KK lies in the half-plane BTCBTC and LL lies in the half-plane CTACTA. Finally, denote the centre of the side BCBC as DD and the centre of KLKL as EE. Determine all the possible values of the ratio ATDE\frac{AT}{DE}.

Solution

We shall prove that the ratio has to be equal to 222\sqrt{2}.
Figure 1
First, we shall observe that the triangles BTCBTC and KTLKTL (coloured turquoise and yellow in the diagram) are similar, since
∠BTC=∠BTK+∠KTC=45∘+∠KTC=∠KTC+∠CTL=∠KTL, \angle BTC = \angle BTK + \angle KTC = 45^\circ + \angle KTC = \angle KTC + \angle CTL = \angle KTL,
and by similarity of the triangles BKTBKT and CLTCLT, we have BTCT=KTLT\frac{BT}{CT} = \frac{KT}{LT}. The ratio of similarity has to be 2\sqrt{2}, since BTKT=2\frac{BT}{KT} = \sqrt{2}.
Since DD is a midpoint of BCBC and EE is the midpoint of KLKL, the triangles BTDBTD and KTEKTE are also similar. This tells us that ∠BTD=∠KTE\angle BTD = \angle KTE and BTTD=KTTE\frac{BT}{TD} = \frac{KT}{TE}. Subtracting ∠KTD\angle KTD from the equality gives us ∠BTK=∠DTE\angle BTK = \angle DTE and the equality of ratios can be rearranged to BTKT=TDTE\frac{BT}{KT} = \frac{TD}{TE}, so the

triangles BTK and DTE are similar. Therefore, the triangle DTE is also a right-angled isosceles triangle.
Finally, recall that since T is the centroid, we have AT = 2*TD*, so the desired ratio can be computed simply as
ATDE=2DTDE=22, \frac{AT}{DE} = 2\frac{DT}{DE} = 2\sqrt{2},
as desired.

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