Maths Olympiad Prep

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, 2013

Geometry Difficulty 7.8 National Olympiad, round 2 Prove it Slovenia

Let ABCABC be an acute triangle. The bisector of the side ABAB intersects the lines BCBC and CACA at the points XX and YY, respectively, and the bisector of the side ACAC intersects the lines BCBC and ABAB at the points ZZ and WW, respectively. Prove that the points X,Y,ZX, Y, Z and WW are concyclic.

Solution

The solution uses directed angles. Let EE be the midpoint of the side ABAB and let FF be the midpoint of the side ACAC. Since EFEF is a midline of the triangle ABCABC, EFEF is parallel to BCBC. Because the lines XYXY and ZWZW are bisectors of the sides ABAB and ACAC, respectively, the points E,XE, X and YY as well as the points F,ZF, Z and WW are collinear. The points E,F,YE, F, Y and WW are concyclic because
WEY=BEY=π2=WFC=WFY. \angle WEY = \angle BEY = \frac{\pi}{2} = \angle WFC = \angle WFY.

From concyclicity of the points E,F,YE, F, Y and WW, collinearity of the points F,ZF, Z and WW, and collinearity of the points E,XE, X and YY we now derive
XYW=EYW=EFW=EFZ. \angle XYW = \angle EYW = \angle EFW = \angle EFZ.
Further, from parallelism of the lines EFEF and BCBC, collinearity of the points F,WF, W and ZZ, and collinearity of the points B,C,XB, C, X and YY we get
EFZ=BZF=XZF=XZW. \angle EFZ = \angle BZF = \angle XZF = \angle XZW.
The above two equalities say that XYW=XZW\angle XYW = \angle XZW, hence the points X,Y,ZX, Y, Z and WW are concyclic.

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