Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /9 of 69

Geometry Difficulty 5.2 AIME, harder Prove it Mongolia

Let MM be the midpoint of the side BCBC of acute triangle ABCABC and HH be the orthocenter of ABCABC. Prove that if DD is base of perpendicular dropped from the vertex AA to the line HMHM, then the intersection point of bisectors of the angles DBHDBH, DCHDCH lies on the line HMHM.

Solution

Let BBBB', CCCC' be altitudes. Then points DD, BB', CC' lie on the circle with diameter AHAH. Since CDM=CDH=CAH=CCM\angle C'DM = \angle C'DH = \angle C'AH = \angle C'CM, points DD, CC', MM, CC are cyclic. Thus we have CHMDHCCMCD=HMHCCDCH=CMHM\triangle C'HM \sim \triangle DHC \Rightarrow \frac{C'M}{CD} = \frac{HM}{HC} \Rightarrow \frac{CD}{CH} = \frac{C'M}{HM}.
Figure 1

Similarly, we conclude that BDBH=BMHM\frac{BD}{BH} = \frac{B'M}{HM}. Since CM=BMC'M = B'M, we get CDCH=BDBH\frac{CD}{CH} = \frac{BD}{BH}. Bisector of the angle BDH\angle BDH is BLBL from where follows BDDH=BLLH\frac{BD}{DH} = \frac{BL}{LH} and the fact that BLBL' is bisector of the angle CDH\angle CDH implies CDCH=CLLHL=L\frac{CD}{CH} = \frac{CL'}{L'H} \Rightarrow L = L'.

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.