Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /37 of 158

Geometry Difficulty 5.1 AIME, harder Prove it Estonia

Two circles cc and cc' with centers OO and OO' lie completely outside each other. Points AA, BB, and CC lie on the circle cc and points AA', BB', and CC' lie on the circle cc' so that segment ABABAB \parallel A'B', BCBCBC \parallel B'C', and ABC=ABC\angle ABC = \angle A'B'C'. The lines AAAA', BBBB', and CCCC' are all different and intersect in one point PP, which does not coincide with any of the vertices of the triangles ABCABC or ABCA'B'C'. Prove that AOB=AOB\angle AOB = \angle A'O'B'.

Figure 1
Fig. 1

Solution

The triangles ABPABP and ABPA'B'P are similar, because their corresponding sides are parallel (Fig. 1). Hence ABAB=BPBP\frac{|AB|}{|A'B'|} = \frac{|BP|}{|B'P|}. Likewise the triangles BCPBCP and BCPB'C'P are similar, hence BCBC=BPBP\frac{|BC|}{|B'C'|} = \frac{|BP|}{|B'P|}. Thus ABAB=BCBC\frac{|AB|}{|A'B'|} = \frac{|BC|}{|B'C'|}, and since ABC=ABC\angle ABC = \angle A'B'C', the triangles ABCABC and ABCA'B'C' are also similar. From the equality of the angles ACBACB and ACBA'C'B' the equality of the central angles AOBAOB and AOBA'O'B' now follows.

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

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