Let be an acute triangle and let be a point in the interior of the triangle, such that and . Prove that the lines and are perpendicular.
, 2016
Solution
Let denote the intersection of the lines and , let denote the intersection of and and let denote the intersection of and . The equality implies that the triangles and are similar since they have two common angles. So,
Similarly, the equality implies that the triangles and are similar, so
If we multiply the above inequalities we get
Since , we conclude that the triangles and are similar, so and . This and the assumptions of the problem imply that
so , which is what we wanted to show.
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