Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 6.9 National olympiad Prove it Ireland

Let ABCDABCD be a quadrilateral inscribed in a circle and let MM be a point on the circle. Consider the projections of the point MM on two opposite sides of the quadrilateral, and on its diagonals. Show that there exists a circle passing through these four points if and only if the quadrilateral is a trapezoid.

Solution

Let F,G,H,IF, G, H, I and JJ be the projections of MM on the diagonal ACAC, the side BCBC, the side CDCD, the side ADAD and the diagonal BDBD respectively. The points G,H,JG, H, J are collinear, because they are on Simons's line for BCD\triangle BCD. The points F,H,IF, H, I are on Simons's line for ACD\triangle ACD.

Because MID=MJD=MHD=90\angle MID = \angle MJD = \angle MHD = 90^\circ, the points H,I,JH, I, J lie on the circle with diameter MDMD. This implies JIH=JDH=BDC\angle JIH = \angle JDH = \angle BDC and IHJ=180IDJ=ADB=ACB\angle IHJ = 180^\circ - \angle IDJ = \angle ADB = \angle ACB. Hence, the triangles HIJHIJ and CABCAB are similar. The same is true for the triangles FGHFGH and ABDABD. Because FIFI intersects GJGJ at HH, the points F,G,IF, G, I and JJ are on a circle if and only if the triangles HIJHIJ and HGFHGF are similar. Hence, F,G,IF, G, I and JJ are on a circle iff the triangles CABCAB and DBADBA are similar. This is equivalent to ABCDABCD being an isosceles trapezoid with ABAB parallel to CDCD.

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