Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /76 of 129

Geometry Difficulty 5.4 AIME, harder Prove it Slovenia

Let ABCDABCD be a convex quadrilateral. Choose points EE and FF on the segment ABAB and a point GG on the segment CDCD, such that the quadrilaterals ABCGABCG, AFCDAFCD and EFGCEFGC are cyclic. Prove that AE=FB|AE| = |FB| if and only if the segments ABAB and CDCD are parallel.

Solution

Let DCA=γ\angle DCA = \gamma. Since the quadrilateral AFCDAFCD is cyclic, we have
DFA=DCA=γ. \angle DFA = \angle DCA = \gamma.
Since ABCGABCG is also a cyclic quadrilateral, we have GBA=GCA=γ\angle GBA = \angle GCA = \gamma. From here we conclude that the lines DFDF and GBGB are parallel.

In the cyclic quadrilateral AFCDAFCD we have FAD=πDCF\angle FAD = \pi - \angle DCF and in the cyclic quadrilateral GEFCGEFC we have GEF=πGCF\angle GEF = \pi - \angle GCF. Since GCF=DCF\angle GCF = \angle DCF we get FAD=GEF\angle FAD = \angle GEF, so the lines ADAD and GEGE are parallel.

Let AA' be a point on the line ADAD and let BB' be a point on the line DFDF, such that GAEAGA' \parallel EA and GBFBGB' \parallel FB. Obviously, the points GG, BB' and AA' are collinear. The quadrilateral AEGAAEGA' is a parallelogram, so AG=AE|A'G| = |AE|. The quadrilateral FBGBFBGB' is also a parallelogram, so BG=FB|B'G| = |FB|.

Figure 1

If AE=FB|AE| = |FB|, we have AG=BG|A'G| = |B'G|. Since the point GG clearly does not lie between AA' and BB', we conclude that A=BA' = B'. This is only possible when A=B=DA' = B' = D. In this case, the line GDGD is parallel to the line AEAE, which means that the segments ABAB and CDCD are parallel.

Conversely, if ABAB and CDCD are parallel, then the quadrilaterals AEGDAEGD and FBGDFBGD are parallelograms, since they have two pairs of parallel sides each. So, AE=DG=FB|AE| = |DG| = |FB|.

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 reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.