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Geometry Difficulty 6.5 National olympiad Prove it China

Let ll be the perimeter of an acute triangle ABC\triangle ABC which is not equilateral, PP a variable point inside ABC\triangle ABC, and D,ED, E and FF be projections of PP on BC,CABC, CA and ABAB respectively.
Prove that
2(AF+BD+CE)=l, 2(AF + BD + CE) = l,
if and only if PP is collinear with the incenter and circumcenter of ABC\triangle ABC. (posed by Xiong Bin)

Solution

Denote the lengths of three sides of ABC\triangle ABC by BC=aBC = a, CA=bCA = b and AB=cAB = c respectively. No loss of generality, we can suppose bcb \neq c. We choose a rectangular coordinate system (see the figure), then we have A(m,n)A(m, n), B(0,0)B(0, 0), C(a,0)C(a, 0) and P(x,y)P(x, y).

Figure 1

Since AF2BF2=AP2BP2AF^2 - BF^2 = AP^2 - BP^2, it follows that
AF2(cAF)2=AP2BP2. AF^2 - (c - AF)^2 = AP^2 - BP^2.
Therefore,
2cAFc2=(xm)2+(yn)2x2y2, 2c \cdot AF - c^2 = (x-m)^2 + (y-n)^2 - x^2 - y^2,
and
AF=m2+n22mx2ny2c+c2. AF = \frac{m^2 + n^2 - 2mx - 2ny}{2c} + \frac{c}{2}.

Similarly, we can compute BDBD and CECE in terms of xx and yy.

Since AF+BD+CE=l2AF + BD + CE = \frac{l}{2}, we get
m2+n22mx2ny2c+c2+x+2mx+2nym2n22ax+a22b+b2=l2, \frac{m^2+n^2-2mx-2ny}{2c} + \frac{c}{2} + x + \frac{2mx+2ny-m^2-n^2-2ax+a^2}{2b} + \frac{b}{2} = \frac{l}{2},
that is,
(mbabmc+1)x+(nbnc)y+a22b+b+c2+m2+n22(1c1b)l2=0. \left(\frac{m}{b} - \frac{a}{b} - \frac{m}{c} + 1\right)x + \left(\frac{n}{b} - \frac{n}{c}\right)y + \frac{a^2}{2b} + \frac{b+c}{2} + \frac{m^2+n^2}{2}\left(\frac{1}{c} - \frac{1}{b}\right) - \frac{l}{2} = 0.
Since bcb \neq c and n0n \neq 0, point PP is on a fixed straight line. Since the condition 2(AF+BD+CE)=l2(AF + BD + CE) = l is satisfied for both incenter and circumcenter, we complete the proof.

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