Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 8.4 Shortlist Prove it Romania

Let ABCABC be a triangle, and let II and OO be its incenter and circumcenter, respectively. The AA-excircle touches the lines ABAB, ACAC, BCBC at KK, LL, MM, respectively. Show that, if the midpoint of the segment KLKL lies on the circle ABCABC, then II, MM, OO are collinear.

Pavel Kozhevnikov, Russian Olympiad, 2005

Figure 1

Solution

Leaving the trivial case AB=ACAB = AC aside, we show that II, MM, OO all lie on the Euler line of the triangle formed by the three excenters IAI_A, IBI_B, ICI_C. Recall that the Euler line of a triangle is the line through the orthocenter, the center of the nine-point circle and the circumcenter of that triangle. Since II is the orthocenter of the triangle IAIBICI_A I_B I_C, and OO is the center of its nine-point circle, the line IOIO is indeed the Euler line of this triangle.

We now show that, if the midpoint of the segment KLKL lies on the circle ABCABC, then MM is the circumcenter of the triangle IAIBICI_A I_B I_C. The conclusion then follows by the preceding.

To prove that MM is the circumcenter of the triangle IAIBICI_A I_B I_C, we show that it lies on the perpendicular bisectrix of the segment IAIBI_A I_B; similarly, it lies on the perpendicular bisectrix of the segment IAICI_A I_C, so it is indeed the circumcenter of the triangle IAIBICI_A I_B I_C.

Let PP be the midpoint of the segment KLKL. Since AK=ALAK = AL, the point PP lies on the bisectrix AIAI of the angle BACBAC, so it is the midpoint of the circular arc BPCBPC, and therefore lies on the perpendicular bisectrix of the segment BCBC; and since BB and CC both lie on the circle on diameter IIAII_A (the angles IBIAIBI_A and ICIAICI_A are both right), it follows that PP is the midpoint of the segment IIAII_A.

Clearly, the line IACIBI_A CI_B is the perpendicular bisectrix of the segment LMLM, so it crosses the latter at its midpoint QQ. Since PQPQ is a midline in the triangle KLMKLM, it is parallel to KMKM, and since KMKM and BIIBBII_B are both perpendicular to IABICI_A BI_C, it follows that PQPQ and BIIBBII_B are parallel. Recall that PP is the midpoint of the segment IIAII_A, to infer that PQPQ is a midline in the triangle IIAIBII_A I_B, so QQ is the midpoint of the segment IAIBI_A I_B. Consequently, MM lies on the perpendicular bisectrix of the segment IAIBI_A I_B, as desired. This ends the proof.

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