Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 6.0 AIME, harder Prove it Estonia

Let ABCABC be a triangle with median AKAK. Let OO be the circumcenter of the triangle ABKABK.

a) Prove that if OO lies on a midline of the triangle ABCABC, but does not coincide with its endpoints, then ABCABC is a right triangle.

b) Is the statement still true if OO can coincide with an endpoint of the midsegment?

Solution

Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Solution:
a) Let LL and MM be the midpoints of the sides CACA and ABAB, respectively. If OO lies on the segment KMKM (Fig. 2), then the segment KMKM and the perpendicular bisector of ABAB have two different common points OO and MM, hence KMKM is the perpendicular bisector of ABAB. Since KMKM is parallel to ACAC and is perpendicular to ABAB, the angle at vertex AA must be right. If OO lies on the segment LMLM (Fig. 3), then we get similarly that the angle at vertex BB must be right. If OO lies on the segment KLKL (Fig. 4), then on one hand ABC\angle ABC is acute, because OKOK and MBMB are perpendicular to MOMO, the perpendicular bisector of ABAB, and OK<LK=MB|OK| < |LK| = |MB|. On the other hand, ABK\angle ABK must be obtuse, since the circumcenter OO of the triangle ABKABK lies outside of the triangle, a contradiction. Thus this case is not possible.

b) If the triangle ABCABC is equilateral, then the median AKAK is also the altitude and ABKABK is a right triangle with the hypotenuse ABAB. The circumcenter OO of the last triangle is the midpoint of ABAB, i.e. an endpoint of a midsegment of the triangle, but ABCABC is not a right triangle.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.