Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.7 AIME, harder Prove it Croatia

Let ABCABC be a right triangle with the right angle at CC. Let AA', BB' and CC' be the pedals of the perpendiculars from the centroid of the triangle ABCABC onto the lines BCBC, CACA and ABAB respectively.
Determine the ratio of the areas of the triangles ABCA'B'C' and ABCABC.

Solution

Let us denote by TT the centroid of the triangle ABCABC, by aa, bb and cc the lengths of the sides BC\overline{BC}, CA\overline{CA} and AB\overline{AB} respectively and by vv the length of the altitude to the side AB\overline{AB}. Let us denote α=BAC\alpha = \angle BAC and β=CBA\beta = \angle CBA.
Since TT is the centroid of the triangle ABCABC, it follows that
TA=BC=13CA=13b,TB=AC=13BC=13a,TC=13v. |TA'| = |B'C| = \frac{1}{3}|CA| = \frac{1}{3}b, \quad |TB'| = |A'C| = \frac{1}{3}|BC| = \frac{1}{3}a, \quad |TC'| = \frac{1}{3}v.

P(ABC)=P(ABT)+P(BCT)+P(CAT)=12(TATB+TBTCsin(πα)+TCTAsin(πβ))=118(ab+avsinα+bvsinβ).\begin{align*} P(A'B'C') &= P(A'B'T) + P(B'C'T) + P(C'A'T) \\ &= \frac{1}{2} (|TA'| \cdot |TB'| + |TB'| \cdot |TC'| \sin(\pi - \alpha) + |TC'| \cdot |TA'| \sin(\pi - \beta)) \\ &= \frac{1}{18} (ab + av \sin \alpha + bv \sin \beta). \end{align*}
Since$v=asinβ$,$v=bsinα$,$a=csinα$,$b=csinβ$and$c2=a2+b2$hold,weget Since \$v = a \sin \beta\$, \$v = b \sin \alpha\$, \$a = c \sin \alpha\$, \$b = c \sin \beta\$ and \$c^2 = a^2 + b^2\$ hold, we get
P(ABC)=118(ab+a2sinαsinβ+b2sinαsinβ)=118(ab+c2sinαsinβ)=118(ab+ab)=19ab=29P(ABC).\begin{align*} P(A'B'C') &= \frac{1}{18}(ab + a^2 \sin \alpha \sin \beta + b^2 \sin \alpha \sin \beta) \\ &= \frac{1}{18}(ab + c^2 \sin \alpha \sin \beta) = \frac{1}{18}(ab + ab) \\ &= \frac{1}{9}ab = \frac{2}{9}P(ABC). \end{align*}

Hence P(ABC):P(ABC)=2:9P(A'B'C') : P(ABC) = 2 : 9.

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