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Geometry Difficulty 4.9 AIME Prove it Ireland

The images under reflection of the circumcentre of triangle ABCABC in the sides of the triangle are XX, YY, and ZZ. Prove XYZ\triangle XYZ is congruent to ABC\triangle ABC and corresponding sides are parallel.

Solutions — 2

Solution 1

Let XX, YY and ZZ be the reflections in BCBC, CACA and ABAB respectively and let EE and FF be the midpoints of CACA and ABAB respectively.

Figure 1

Since ZZ is the reflection of OO in ABAB, AZ=AO=OBAZ = AO = OB. Similarly AY=OCAY = OC.
Also ZZAB=LOABZZAB = LOAB and ZYAC=LOACZYAC = LOAC, hence LBAC=12ZAYLBAC = \frac{1}{2} \angle ZAY.
Since OO is the circumcentre, LBAC=12BOCLBAC = \frac{1}{2} \angle BOC and so ZAY=BOC\angle ZAY = \angle BOC
which implies that ZAY\angle ZAY is congruent to BOC\angle BOC, hence ZY=BCZY = BC.
Now ZB=OB=OC=CYZB = OB = OC = CY, hence ZYCBZYCB is a parallelogram and YZBCYZ \parallel BC.
Similarly XYABXY \parallel AB and XZACXZ \parallel AC, and so the triangles ABCABC and XYZXYZ are
congruent and corresponding sides are parallel.

Solution 2

Let XX, YY and ZZ be the reflections in BCBC, CACA and ABAB respectively and let EE and FF be the midpoints of CACA and ABAB respectively.

Figure 2

Because EE and FF are the mid-points of the sides CACA and ABAB, the Intercept Theorem (or the Mid-Point Theorem) implies that EFBCEF \parallel BC and BC=2EF|BC| = 2|EF|. Because FF is the mid-point of OZOZ and EE the mid-point of OYOY, the same reason gives EFYZEF \parallel YZ and YZ=2EF|YZ| = 2|EF|. Hence YZBCYZ \parallel BC and
YZ=BC.|YZ| = |BC|.
Similarly, XYABXY \parallel AB, XY=AB|XY| = |AB| and XZACXZ \parallel AC, XZ=AC|XZ| = |AC| and so the triangles ABCABC and XYZXYZ are congruent and corresponding sides are parallel.

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