Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 4.9 AIME Prove it North Macedonia

The sides of the triangle are consecutive terms in the arithmetic progression. Prove that the line connecting the centroid and the center of the incircle is parallel to the side of the triangle with middle length.

Solution

Let ABC\triangle ABC be a triangle with sides AB=c\overline{AB} = c, a=BC=c+d\overline{a} = \overline{BC} = c + d and b=AC=c+2d\overline{b} = \overline{AC} = c + 2d. Let OO be the center of the incircle and O1O_1 be the centroid, and D,ED, E be the feet of the side BCBC, respectively. Let OD=r\overline{OD} = r, and the area of triangle ABC\triangle ABC be P=rsP = rs. Since s=c+d+c+c+2d2=32(c+d)s = \frac{c + d + c + c + 2d}{2} = \frac{3}{2}(c + d), we have r=Ps=2P3(c+d)r = \frac{P}{s} = \frac{2P}{3(c + d)}. Now PO1BC=13PABC=O1E12(c+d)P_{O_1BC} = \frac{1}{3}P_{ABC} = \overline{O_1E} \cdot \frac{1}{2}(c + d), i.e. O1E=2P3(c+d)=r\overline{O_1E} = \frac{2P}{3(c + d)} = r.

Quadrilateral DOO1EDOO_1E is a parallelogram from where we get OO1DEOO_1 \parallel DE, i.e. OO1BCOO_1 \parallel BC.

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