Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /99 of 133

, 2015

Geometry Difficulty 6.3 National olympiad Prove it Saudi Arabia

Let ABCA B C be a triangle with orthocenter HH. Let PP be any point of the plane of the triangle. Let Ω\Omega be the circle with the diameter APA P. The circle Ω\Omega cuts CAC A and ABA B again at EE and FF, respectively. The line PHP H cuts Ω\Omega again at GG. The tangent lines to Ω\Omega at E,FE, F intersect at TT. Let MM be the midpoint of BCB C and LL be the point on MGM G such that ALA L and MTM T are parallel. Prove that LAL A and LHL H are orthogonal.

Solution

Let BY,CZB Y, C Z be altitudes of ABCA B C. Points Y,ZY, Z lie on the circle of diameter AHA H. The line HPH P cuts the circle Ω\Omega again at GG. Since APA P is a diameter in Ω\Omega, the lines AGA G and PHP H are perpendicular and therefore point GG lies on the circle of diameter AHA H.

Figure 1

Because A,E,G,FA, E, G, F are concyclic and A,G,Z,H,YA, G, Z, H, Y are concyclic, we have GEF=GAF=GAZ=GYZ\angle G E F=\angle G A F=\angle G A Z=\angle G Y Z and FGE=ZAY=ZGY\angle F G E=\angle Z A Y=\angle Z G Y. We deduce that triangles GEFG E F and GYZG Y Z are similar.
We know that MZC=ZCB=ZAH\angle M Z C=\angle Z C B=\angle Z A H. We deduce that ZMZ M is tangent to the circumcircle of triangle GZYG Z Y. Similarly, MYM Y is tangent to the circumcircle of triangle GZYG Z Y. But FTF T and ETE T are tangent to the circumcircle of triangle GFEG F E. We deduce that quadrilaterals GFTEG F T E and GZMYG Z M Y are similar and therefore GZA=GZF=GMT=GLA\angle G Z A=\angle G Z F=\angle G M T=\angle G L A, since LAL A is parallel to MTM T. This means that point LL lies on the circle of diameter AHA H and therefore LAL A and LHL H are orthogonal.

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 and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.