Olympiad Maths Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.7 AIME, harder Prove it Ukraine

A right trapezoid is given with the following property: a square can be inscribed into it such that all its vertices lie on different edges of the trapezoid and none of them coincide with any vertex of the trapezoid. Construct this square with a ruler and a compass.
(Mariya Rozhkova)

Solution

Analysis. Let ABCDABCD be our trapezoid with right angles AA and BB. Let EFGHEFGH be the required square centered at OO, and suppose EABE \in AB, FBCF \in BC. In the quadrilateral EBFOEBFO two opposite angles are right, hence, it's cyclic. This implies that EFO=EBO=45\angle EFO = \angle EBO = 45^\circ as they intercept the same arc EOEO (Fig. 4). Likewise, EAO=45\angle EAO = 45^\circ. Thus OO is the intersection point for bisectors of angles AA and BB in the trapezoid. Also, EE and GG are symmetric with respect to OO.

Construction. Construct OO as the intersection point of two bisectors drawn from AA and BB. Then we can construct a straight line ll symmetric to ABAB with respect to OO. The line ll intersects the segment CDCD at a unique point GG, which is a vertex of our square. Having the center and one vertex of the square, we can reconstruct it in a unique way.

Figure 1

Fig. 4

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