Maths Olympiad Prep

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, 2011

Geometry Difficulty 7.6 National Olympiad, round 2 Prove it Baltic Way

The incircle of a triangle ABCABC touches the sides BCBC, CACA, ABAB at DD, EE, FF, respectively. Let GG be a point on the incircle such that FGFG is a diameter. The lines EGEG and FDFD intersect at HH. Prove that CHABCH \parallel AB.

Solution

We work in the opposite direction. Suppose that HH' is the point where DFDF intersects the line through CC parallel to ABAB. We need to show that H=HH' = H. For this purpose it suffices to prove that EE, GG, HH' are collinear, which reduces to showing that if GEG' \neq E is the common point of EHEH' and the incircle, then G=GG' = G.

Figure 1

Note that HH' and BB lie on the same side of ACAC. Hence CHABCH' \parallel AB gives ACH=180BAC\angle ACH' = 180^\circ - \angle BAC. Also, some homothety with center DD maps the segment BFBF to the segment CHCH'. Thus the equality BD=BFBD = BF implies that CH=CD=CECH' = CD = CE, i.e. the triangle ECHECH' is isosceles and
HEC=12(180ECH)=12BAC. \angle H'EC = \frac{1}{2}(180^\circ - \angle ECH') = \frac{1}{2}\angle BAC.
But GG' and HH' lie on the same side of ACAC, so GEC=HEC\angle G'EC = \angle H'EC and consequently
GFE=GEC=HEC=12BAC \angle G'FE = \angle G'EC = \angle H'EC = \frac{1}{2}\angle BAC
so that
GFA=GFE+EFA=12BAC+12(180FAE)=90. \angle G'FA = \angle G'FE + \angle EFA = \frac{1}{2}\angle BAC + \frac{1}{2}(180^\circ - \angle FAE) = 90^\circ.
Hence FGFG' is a diameter of the incircle and the desired equality G=GG' = G follows.

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