Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 7.7 National Olympiad, round 2 Prove it Baltic Way

Point PP lies inside triangle ABCABC, MM is the midpoint of side BCBC and PP' is symmetric to PP with respect to MM. KK and HH are projections of PP on ABAB and ACAC respectively and KM=HMKM = HM. Prove that PAB=CAP\angle PAB = \angle CAP'.

Solution

Denote by AA', KK', HH' the points symmetrical to AA, KK, HH with respect to MM, as in figure 13.
It is clear that KHHKKH'H'K is a rectangle and the quadrilateral AKPHAKPH is inscribed, denote its circumcircle by ω\omega. Then
CHK=90AHK=PHK=PAK. \angle CHK' = 90^\circ - \angle AHK = \angle PHK = \angle PAK.
Let LL be the second intersection point of line HKHK' and ω\omega. The above equality of angles means that LHA=PAK\angle LHA = \angle PAK, therefore AL=KPAL = KP, and then AKPLAKPL is a rectangle. Hence ALKPKPAL \parallel KP \parallel K'P' and APKLAP'K'L is parallelogram. Thus, HKAPHK' \parallel AP' and then CHK=CAP\angle CHK' = \angle CAP'.

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