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Geometry Difficulty 7.5 National olympiad, round 2 Prove it Belarus

Given a convex hexagon HH with obtuse inner angles and parallel opposite sides.

a) Prove that there exists a pair of the opposite sides of HH which possesses the following property: there exists a straight line that is perpendicular to these sides and intersects each of them.

b) Is it true that there exist two pairs of the opposite sides of HH, each of which possesses the same property, as described in item a)?

Solution

b) it is not true.

a) Let ABCDDEFABCDDEF be a hexagon with all obtuse inner angles and parallel opposite sides (ABDEAB \parallel DE, BCEFBC \parallel EF, CDFACD \parallel FA, see Fig. 1). Consider the greatest side of this hexagon (one of such sides if there are more than one). Let it be the side ABAB. Since the hexagon ABCDDEFABCDDEF is convex, it completely lies in one of the half-planes with respect to the line ABAB; denote this half-plane by Π\Pi.

Figure 1

Fig. 1

Suppose that none of the lines intersecting and perpendicular to the side ABAB intersect the side DEDE. Construct the perpendiculars hAh_A and hBh_B in the half-plane Π\Pi (see Fig. 2). By our assumption, there are no points of the side DEDE in the half-strip P0P_0. In particular, either point DD lies to the right of the ray hAh_A or point EE lies to the left of the ray hBh_B. Without loss of generality, suppose that DD lies to the right of hAh_A (see Fig. 2). Then the vertex CC lies neither to the right of the ray hAh_A nor to the left of the ray hBh_B. Indeed, otherwise we obtain BC>BABC > BA (see Fig. 3) and CD>BACD > BA (see Fig. 4), respectively. But any of these inequalities contradicts to the choice of the side ABAB as the greatest side of the hexagon. So the vertex CC lies in the half-strip P0P_0, but in this case the angle ABCABC is not obtuse, contrary to the problem condition. Therefore, there exists a straight line such that it is perpendicular to the sides ABAB and DEDE and intersects both of them.

b) Construct the convex hexagon ABCDDEFABCDDEF satisfying the problem condition (all inner angles are obtuse and opposite sides are parallel) such that there exists exactly one pair of the opposite sides intersected by the perpendicular straight line.

Figure 2

Fig. 5
Fig. 6

Consider the isosceles triangle KLMKLM with the base LMLM and the acute angle LKMLKM (see Fig. 5). Let KHKH be the altitude of the triangle KLMKLM. Let points PP and QQ be the inner points of the segments MHMH and LHLH, respectively, such that they are symmetric with respect to HH. Let EE be the foot of perpendicular from PP into KLKL, and let DD be the some point AA on the segment LQLQ and some point BB on the segment MPMP. Construct the line l(A)l(A) passing through AA parallel to KMKM, and construct the line l(B)l(B) passing through BB parallel to KLKL. Let FF be the intersection point of lAl_A and KLKL, and let GG be the intersection point of lBl_B and KMKM (see Fig. 5). Then (see Fig. 6) it is easy to see that the hexagon ABCDDEFABCDDEF is required.

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