Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /13 of 42

Geometry Difficulty 5.4 AIME, harder Prove it Ireland

A trapezium ABCDABCD with ABDCAB \parallel DC and AB<DC|AB| < |DC| is inscribed in a circle, centre OO. The diagonals ACAC and BDBD are mutually perpendicular at PP. If EE is the midpoint of ABAB and FF is the midpoint of DCDC, prove OF=PE|OF| = |PE|.

Solution

First note that BAC=BDC\angle BAC = \angle BDC (inscribed angles) and BAC=ACD\angle BAC = \angle ACD (alternate angles at ABCDAB \parallel CD). Hence, BDC=ACD\angle BDC = \angle ACD and triangle CDPCDP is isosceles with CP=DP|CP| = |DP|. This implies that PP is on the perpendicular bisector of CDCD and that PBA=BAP=45\angle PBA = \angle BAP = 45^\circ (because ACBDAC \perp BD).
The centre OO of the circle is on the perpendicular bisectors of the chords ABAB and CDCD. As ABAB and CDCD are parallel, their perpendicular bisectors are parallel as well. As they have OO in common, they coincide. This means that OPOP is the common perpendicular bisector of ABAB and of CDCD.

Figure 1
Because BEP=CPD=90\angle BEP = \angle CPD = 90^\circ and PDC=PBA=45\angle PDC = \angle PBA = 45^\circ, triangles BEP and CPD are right angled and isosceles. In particular, BE=EP|BE| = |EP|. Moreover, BOC=2BDC=90\angle BOC = 2\angle BDC = 90^\circ (central angle), hence
BOE=180BOCCOF=90COF=OCF. \angle BOE = 180^\circ - \angle BOC - \angle COF = 90^\circ - \angle COF = \angle OCF.
Since OB=OC|OB| = |OC|, we can now use ASA to see that OCF\triangle OCF is congruent to BOE\triangle BOE, thus OF=BE=EP|OF| = |BE| = |EP|.

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 and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.