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Geometry Difficulty 6.3 National Olympiad Prove it Romania

In an acute triangle ABCABC with AB<BCAB < BC let BBBB' be an altitude, and let OO be the circumcenter. A line through BB' parallel to COCO meets BOBO at XX. Prove that XX and the midpoints of ABAB and ACAC are collinear.

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Figure 1

Solution

Let MM be the midpoint of the side ABAB. Then OBC=OCB=90A\angle OBC = \angle OCB = 90^\circ - \angle A and MXMX parallel to BCBC comes to MXB=90A\angle MXB = 90^\circ - \angle A. But BXB=XOC=2OBC=1802A\angle B'XB = \angle XOC = 2\angle OBC = 180^\circ - 2\angle A. In the triangle ABBABB' we have MA=MB=MBMA = MB = MB' and BMB=MAB+MBA=2A\angle BMB' = \angle MAB' + \angle MB'A = 2\angle A. It follows that the quadrilateral MBXBMBXB' is cyclic, hence MXB=MBB=ABB=OBC\angle MXB = \angle MB'B = \angle ABB' = \angle OBC, which leads to the conclusion.

Second solution. Let KK the projection of BB onto the parallel through AA to the line BCBC. The quadrilateral AKBBAKBB' is cyclic, hence ABK=ABK=90B=OCA=CBX\angle AB'K = \angle ABK = 90^\circ - \angle B = \angle OCA = \angle CB'X. It follows that points K,BK, B' and XX are collinear. Finally, the triangle BXKBXK is isosceles, with BX=KXBX = KX, therefore XX lies on the perpendicular bisector of the line segment BKBK, i.e. XX is on the midline of triangle ABCABC that is parallel to BCBC. We have XBK=90OBC=A=XKB\angle XBK = 90^\circ - \angle OBC = \angle A = \angle XKB (from the cyclic quadrilateral AKBBAKBB'). The conclusion follows readily.

Third solution. (Given by Alexandru Mihalcu.) Let SS be the midpoint of the line segment ACAC and TT be the intersection point of lines BXBX and ACAC. As OSOS is parallel to BBBB', we have BSST=OBOT=OCOT=BXXT\frac{B'S}{ST} = \frac{OB}{OT} = \frac{OC}{OT} = \frac{B'X}{XT}. From the converse of the Angle Bisector Theorem it follows that XSXS is the angle bisector of BXT\angle B'XT. Then SXT=BXT2=XOC2=OBC\angle SXT = \frac{\angle B'XT}{2} = \frac{\angle XOC}{2} = \angle OBC, and the conclusion follows.

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