Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.8 AIME, harder Prove it Austria

Let hh be a semicircle with diameter ABAB. The two circles k1k_1 and k2k_2, k1k2k_1 \neq k_2, touch the segment ABAB at the points CC and DD, respectively, and the semicircle hh from the inside at the points EE and FF, respectively. Prove that the four points CC, DD, EE and FF lie on a circle.

Solution

We first consider the case where CC and DD are both not the center of ABAB, so that the tangents in CC and DD are both not parallel to ABAB.

The tangent in EE intersects ABAB in XX, the tangent in FF intersects ABAB in YY and the two tangents intersect each other in ZZ. Let II now be the intersection point of the angle bisector of XYZ\angle XYZ and ZXY\angle ZXY. Since the tangent segments XCXC and XEXE at k1k_1 are of equal length and CC, EE lie on the legs of the angle ZXY\angle ZXY, CC and EE are equidistant from II.

The same applies to DD and FF with the circle k2k_2 and EE and FF with the semicircle hh.

This means that the four points lie on a circle with center II.

In the remaining special case that k1k_1 passes through the center of ABAB, we can still define YY as the intersection of the tangent in FF with ABAB, and ZZ as the intersection of the tangents in EE and FF. We define II as the intersection of the angle bisectors of ZYD\angle ZYD and EZY\angle EZY. Therefore, II has the same distance to DYDY and YZYZ, and the same distance to EZEZ and YZYZ. This means that II also has the same distance to the parallel lines DYDY and EZEZ. Thus II lies on the perpendicular bisector of CECE and, thus, IC=IEIC = IE.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.