Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.4 AIME, harder Prove it Bulgaria

Problem:

A real number is assigned to every point in the plane. Let P\mathcal{P} be a convex nn-gon. It is known that for every nn-gon similar to P\mathcal{P} the sum of the numbers assigned to its vertices is equal to 00. Prove that all numbers assigned to the points in the plane are equal to 00.

Solution

Solution:

Let OO be an arbitrary point in the plane and let A1,1A2,1An,1A_{1,1} A_{2,1} \ldots A_{n,1} be an nn-gon similar to P\mathcal{P} and containing OO. Consider the nn-gons
OA1,1A1,2A1,n1,OA2,1A2,2A2,n1,,OAn,1An,2An,n1 O A_{1,1} A_{1,2} \ldots A_{1, n-1},\quad O A_{2,1} A_{2,2} \ldots A_{2, n-1},\quad \ldots,\quad O A_{n,1} A_{n,2} \ldots A_{n, n-1}
that are similar to A1,1A2,1An,1A_{1,1} A_{2,1} \ldots A_{n,1} and have the same orientation. Using a rotation and a homothety with center OO we see that the nn-gon A1,jA2,jAn,jA_{1, j} A_{2, j} \ldots A_{n, j}, j=2,,n1j=2, \ldots, n-1, is similar to A1,1A2,1An,1A_{1,1} A_{2,1} \ldots A_{n,1} and has the same orientation.

Denote by oo and ai,ja_{i, j} the numbers assigned to the points OO and Ai,jA_{i, j}, respectively. Summing up the equalities
o+j=1n1ai,j=0,i=1,,n o+\sum_{j=1}^{n-1} a_{i, j}=0,\quad i=1, \ldots, n
and using that
i=1nai,j=0,j=1,,n1 \sum_{i=1}^{n} a_{i, j}=0,\quad j=1, \ldots, n-1
we get no=0n o=0, which implies the assertion.

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