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Geometry Difficulty 4.5 AIME Prove it North Macedonia

Let pp be a given line. AA and BB are two points such that ApA \notin p and BpB \notin p. Construct a point CC on the line pp such that AC=BC\overline{AC} = \overline{BC}.

Solution

The points that lie on the bisector of the segment ABAB are on equal distance of its end points AA and BB. Hence the desired point CC is the intersection of the bisector of ABAB and the line pp. The problem has a unique solution if ABAB and pp are not perpendicular, if ABAB and pp are perpendicular and pp is not the bisector of ABAB then the problem doesn't have a solution and if ABAB and pp are perpendicular and pp is the bisector of ABAB then the problem has infinitely many solution because every point of pp is a solution.

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