Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /15 of 18

Geometry Difficulty 7.0 National Olympiad Prove it Italy

Problem:

Let ABCABC be an acute triangle and DD the foot of the bisector from AA. Let EE and FF be respectively the intersections of ACAC with the circle circumscribed to ABDABD, and of ABAB with the circle circumscribed to ACDACD. Let PP also be the intersection of BEBE and CFCF.

a. Show that triangle PBCPBC is isosceles.

b. Show that BD:BE=CD:CFBD : BE = CD : CF.

c. Let FF^{\prime} be the reflection of FF with respect to the midpoint of BCBC. Show that triangle EBFEBF^{\prime} is similar to triangle ABCABC.

Solution

Solution:

a.
Since DBAEDBAE and CDFACDFA are cyclic, we have BCP=DCF=DAF=DAB\angle BCP = \angle DCF = \angle DAF = \angle DAB and CBP=DBE=DAE=DAC\angle CBP = \angle DBE = \angle DAE = \angle DAC. Since ADAD is the bisector of BAC\angle BAC, we have BAD=DAC\angle BAD = \angle DAC, hence BCP=CBP\angle BCP = \angle CBP, which shows that triangle BCPBCP is isosceles.

b.
Since DBAEDBAE and CDFACDFA are cyclic, we have DFC=DAC=DAB=DEB\angle DFC = \angle DAC = \angle DAB = \angle DEB. Moreover, from the previous point, we know that EBD=DCF\angle EBD = \angle DCF. Since triangles EBDEBD and FCDFCD have 2 pairs of equal angles, they are similar. Therefore BD:BE=CD:CFBD : BE = CD : CF.

c.
The quadrilateral CFBFCFBF^{\prime} has, by hypothesis, diagonals that bisect each other, hence it is a parallelogram. Note that EBF\angle EBF^{\prime} is congruent to CAB\angle CAB. Indeed, since CFBFCFBF^{\prime} is a parallelogram, we know that CBF=BCF=DAF\angle CBF^{\prime} = \angle BCF = \angle DAF (where the last equality follows from the previous points) and CBE=DAE\angle CBE = \angle DAE (again by the previous points). Hence
EBF=CBE+CBF=DAE+DAB=CAB. \angle EBF^{\prime} = \angle CBE + \angle CBF^{\prime} = \angle DAE + \angle DAB = \angle CAB .
Now observe that
ECF=ECB+BCF=ACB+CBA=180CAB=180EBF, \angle EC F^{\prime} = \angle ECB + \angle BCF^{\prime} = \angle ACB + \angle CBA = 180^{\circ} - CAB = 180^{\circ} - EBF^{\prime} \, ,
where the equality BCF=CBA\angle BCF^{\prime} = \angle CBA is due to the fact that the quadrilateral CFBFCFBF^{\prime} is a parallelogram. It follows that the angles ECF\angle EC F^{\prime} and EBF\angle EBF^{\prime} are supplementary and the quadrilateral EBFCEBF^{\prime}C is cyclic. We deduce therefore that ECB=EFB\angle ECB = \angle EF^{\prime}B. We have thus shown that triangles EFBEF^{\prime}B and ACBACB have two pairs of equal angles and are therefore similar.

Alternatively, we can observe that BF=CFBF^{\prime} = CF because they are opposite sides of the parallelogram BFCFBF^{\prime}CF, from which, thanks to point (b), we obtain BF:BE=CD:BDBF^{\prime} : BE = CD : BD. Now, thanks to the angle bisector theorem, CD:BD=AB:ACCD : BD = AB : AC, hence triangles BEFBEF^{\prime} and ABCABC are similar thanks to the second criterion of similarity.

Figure 1

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement translated into English from it; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.