Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 6.2 National Olympiad Prove it Soviet Union

Problem:

ABCDABCD is a convex quadrilateral. The midpoints of the diagonals and the midpoints of ABAB and CDCD form another convex quadrilateral QQ. The midpoints of the diagonals and the midpoints of BCBC and CACA form a third convex quadrilateral QQ'. The areas of QQ and QQ' are equal. Show that either ACAC or BDBD divides ABCDABCD into two parts of equal area.

Solution

Solution:

Note that QQ is a parallelogram because each side is formed by joining the midpoints of two sides of a triangle, so it is parallel to and half the length of the base of the triangle. But the triangles corresponding to opposite sides have the same base. Hence opposite sides of QQ are parallel and equal. Similarly QQ'.

Let the midpoints of the diagonals be XX, YY. Take two adjacent side midpoints which are on the same side of the line XYXY. Suppose they are MM, the midpoint of ABAB, and NN, the midpoint of BCBC. Suppose also that XX is the midpoint of BDBD, and YY the midpoint of ACAC. If XX does not lie on ACAC, then we may assume it lies on the same side of ACAC as MM and NN (if not just consider the other two midpoints instead of MM and NN). So the line parallel to XYXY through MM cuts the altitude from NN of NXYNXY. So XYMXYM has the same base XYXY as XYNXYN, but smaller height, so it has smaller area. Hence the two parallelograms also have different areas. Contradiction. So XX must lie on ACAC. But AXAX bisects ABDABD and CXCX bisects CBDCBD, so ACAC bisects ABDABD and CBDCBD and hence ABCDABCD.

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