Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /287 of 462

Geometry Difficulty 6.1 National Olympiad Prove it Ireland

Let ABCABC be a triangle of area 11 (square units), and let PP denote the midpoint of the side BCBC. Consider two points MM and NN interior to the sides ABAB and ACAC respectively, such that AM=2MB|AM| = 2|MB| and CN=2AN|CN| = 2|AN|. The lines APAP and MNMN intersect at a point DD. Find the area of the triangle ADNADN.

Solution

First solution. Let QQ be the point inside ACAC such that MQMQ is parallel to BCBC. Then, because ABC\triangle ABC and AMQ\triangle AMQ are homothetic, AN=NQ=QC|AN| = |NQ| = |QC| and, if (ABC)(ABC) denotes the area of the triangle ABCABC etc., we also have
(AMQ)(ABC)=AM2AB2=49 \frac{(AMQ)}{(ABC)} = \frac{|AM|^2}{|AB|^2} = \frac{4}{9}
Figure 1
On the other hand, the line APAP intersects MQMQ at the midpoint EE of MQMQ, again due to the homothety with centre AA which takes AMQ\triangle AMQ to ABC\triangle ABC. Thus DD is the centroid of AMQ\triangle AMQ and so
(ADN)(AMN)=DNMN=13,while(AMN)(AMQ)=ANAQ=12 \frac{(ADN)}{(AMN)} = \frac{|DN|}{|MN|} = \frac{1}{3}, \quad \text{while} \quad \frac{(AMN)}{(AMQ)} = \frac{|AN|}{|AQ|} = \frac{1}{2}
Multiplication of these three identities yields
(ADN)(ABC)=227. \frac{(ADN)}{(ABC)} = \frac{2}{27}.

Figure 1

Second solution. We note that
(AMD)(ABD)=AMAB=23,while(ADN)(ADC)=ANAC=13. \frac{(AMD)}{(ABD)} = \frac{|AM|}{|AB|} = \frac{2}{3}, \quad \text{while} \quad \frac{(ADN)}{(ADC)} = \frac{|AN|}{|AC|} = \frac{1}{3}.
On the other hand, (ABP)=(APC)(ABP) = (APC) and (DBP)=(DPC)(DBP) = (DPC), because BP=PC|BP| = |PC| and the corresponding triangles have identical altitudes. Taking differences, this implies (ABD)=(ADC)(ABD) = (ADC) and we obtain (AMD)=2(ADN)(AMD) = 2(ADN). From
(AMD)+(ADN)=(AMN)=AMANABAC(ABC)=29, (AMD) + (ADN) = (AMN) = \frac{|AM| \cdot |AN|}{|AB| \cdot |AC|} (ABC) = \frac{2}{9},
we now obtain 2(ADN)+(ADN)=29, hence (ADN)=227. \text{we now obtain } 2(ADN) + (ADN) = \frac{2}{9}, \text{ hence } (ADN) = \frac{2}{27}.

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 reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.