Let be a triangle with and its shortest side. Denote by the intersection of the altitudes of triangle . Let be the circle through with centre . Let be the other intersection of and . Let intersect the circumcircle of again at . If is the intersection of and , show that is tangent to the circle through and .
Solution
Consider Figure 2:

Figure 2
We note that must also be on , the circumcircle of triangle . This is because triangles and are similar (note that triangle is iscoceles, with , and is a perpendicular bisector of , that also bisects ), implying that angles and are equal, showing that is a cyclic quadrilateral.
Let be the centre of , the circumcircle of triangle and drop the perpendicular from to , with foot . Put , so that , giving . Since is a perpendicular bisector of , and , it follows that . Thus, . But the chords and of circle have equal length (since they are both radii of circle ), hence subtend the same angle in circle , giving . But then , so that , where is an arbitrary point on the line through and , with and on opposites sides of .
Finally, since , we conclude that , i.e. the line through and must be tangent to , at the point .