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Geometry Difficulty 6.8 National Olympiad Prove it Romania

On the small arc ABAB of the circumcircle of the equilateral triangle ABCABC we consider a point NN such that the length of the arc NBNB is 3030^\circ. Consider the perpendicular lines from NN to ACAC and ABAB, respectively. These lines intersect again the circumcircle of the triangle ABCABC in points MM and II, respectively.

a) Prove that IMNIMN is an equilateral triangle.

b) If H1,H2H_1, H_2, and H3H_3 are the orthocenters of the triangles NAB,IBCNAB, IBC, and CAMCAM, respectively, prove that H1H2H3H_1H_2H_3 is an equilateral triangle.

Solution

a) Let OO be the circumcenter of the triangle ABCABC. Without loss of generality, we consider O(0)O(0), while the vertices of the triangle are A(1)A(1), B(ε)B(\varepsilon), and C(ε2)C(\varepsilon^2), where ε=12+i32\varepsilon = -\frac{1}{2} + i\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}. Because the length of the arc NBNB is 3030^\circ, we have AOONAO \perp ON, so point NN has the affix ii. Moreover, NIABNI \perp AB implies the existence of αR\alpha \in \mathbb{R}^* such that:
izI1ε=iαzI=i32iα32α, \frac{i - z_I}{1 - \varepsilon} = i\alpha \Rightarrow z_I = i - \frac{3}{2}i\alpha - \frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}\alpha,
where zIz_I is the affix of the point II. From zI=1|z_I| = 1 we obtain α=1\alpha = 1, so the affix of the point II is iεi\varepsilon. In the same manner, from MNACMN \perp AC we obtain that the affix of the point MM is iε2i\varepsilon^2, so the triangle IMNIMN is equilateral.

b) Using Sylvester's theorem we have the affixes of the orthocenters as follows:
zH1=zA+zN+zB=i+1+ε,zH2=zB+zM+zC=ε+iε+ε2=εzH1,zH3=zC+zI+zA=ε2+iε2+1=ε2zH1, \begin{aligned} z_{H_1} &= z_A + z_N + z_B = i + 1 + \varepsilon, \\ z_{H_2} &= z_B + z_M + z_C = \varepsilon + i\varepsilon + \varepsilon^2 = \varepsilon z_{H_1}, \\ z_{H_3} &= z_C + z_I + z_A = \varepsilon^2 + i\varepsilon^2 + 1 = \varepsilon^2 z_{H_1}, \end{aligned}
so the triangle H1H2H3H_1H_2H_3 is equilateral.

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