Let be a scalene triangle. The midpoints of the sides , and are denoted , and respectively. Let , and denote the bisectors of the interior angles of , and respectively. If is the intersection of the perpendicular from to and the perpendicular from to , then show that is parallel to .
, 2015
Solution
Let denote the incenter of , i.e. the intersection of the bisectors , and .
We denote by and the bases of the perpendiculars from to and to , respectively. Let intersect and at and respectively. Since is inscribed, we have , thus is also inscribed. Hence is the base of the perpendicular from to . Similarly for . Since is the incenter, it follows that and thus . Hence it suffices to prove that .
By Thales theorem, the point is the circumcenter of . Thus
Now let and denote the bases of the perpendiculars from to and respectively. We claim that is the incenter of . Firstly, since
the quadrilateral is inscribed. Secondly, since and is the midpoint of , we see that . Similarly, . Consequently is the circumcenter of and therefore . Combining with (1), we see that .