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Geometry Difficulty 7.5 National olympiad, round 2 Prove it Austria

A square and an equilateral triangle are inscribed to a circle. The seven vertices form a convex heptagon HH that is inscribed to the circle. (As a special case HH can be a hexagon if a vertex of the square coincides with a vertex of the triangle.)

For which positions of the triangle relative to the square does HH have the biggest resp. smallest possible values?

Solution

The square divides the circle into four arcs. None of them can contain more than one of the triangle vertices, because the distance between two triangle vertices is equivalent to an inner angle of 120120^{\circ}, whereas the distance between two vertices of the square is only equivalent to an inner angle of 9090^{\circ}. Therefore, the triangle vertices must be on three distinct parts of the circle.
Let ABCDABCD denote the square and let PQRPQR denote the triangle. Without loss of generality, let us assume that PP is on the arc between AA and BB, that QQ is between BB and CC, and that RR is between DD and AA, as shown in the graph below.

Figure 1

We see that the heptagon is combined of the square ABCDABCD and the three triangles APBAPB, BQCBQC and DRADRA. Since the size of the square ABCDABCD is constant, it is sufficient to maximize resp. minimize the sum of the areas of these three triangles.
Let h1h_1 denote the distance between point PP and line ABAB (i.e., the height of triangle APBAPB), let h2h_2 denote the distance between point QQ and line BCBC, and let h3h_3 denote the distance between point RR and line DADA. The sum of the areas of the three triangles can thus be calculated as AB2h1+BC2h2+DA2h3=s2(h1+h2+h3)\frac{|AB|}{2} \cdot h_1 + \frac{|BC|}{2} \cdot h_2 + \frac{|DA|}{2} \cdot h_3 = \frac{s}{2} \cdot (h_1 + h_2 + h_3), where ss denotes the length of each side of the square. Since ss is constant, it is therefore sufficient to maximize resp. minimize the sum (h1+h2+h3)(h_1 + h_2 + h_3).

We will do this by separately maximizing resp. minimizing the height h1h_1, and the sum of the heights h2+h3h_2 + h_3.

The height h1h_1 is largest when PP is exactly in the middle of the arc between AA and BB.

For maximizing the sum h2+h3h_2+h_3, consider the rectangle QXRYQXRY with sides parallel to the sides of the square ABCDABCD and with QRQR as one of its diagonals. By Pythagoras it holds that QR2=QX2+XR2=(h1+s+h2)2+XR2|QR|^2 = |QX|^2 + |XR|^2 = (h_1+s+h_2)^2 + |XR|^2, and therefore (h2+s+h3)2=QR2XR2(h_2+s+h_3)^2 = |QR|^2 - |XR|^2. Since the length of the triangle side QRQR is constant, the expression (and consequently the sum h2+h3h_2+h_3) is largest when XR=0|XR| = 0. This is the case if side QRQR is parallel to side CDCD, or equivalently, if PP is exactly in the middle of the arc between AA and BB.

Since h1h_1 and the sum h2+h3h_2+h_3 are both maximized in the same case, the sum of all three is also largest when PP is exactly in the middle of the arc between AA and BB.

For determining the minimum, we again separately look at h1h_1 and the sum h2+h3h_2+h_3 and minimize them under the condition that the triangle vertices must remain on the correct parts of the circle.

The height h1h_1 becomes smaller the closer PP moves towards either AA or BB. Since QQ must remain between BB and CC, and RR must remain between DD and AA, the minimum is reached if either Q=CQ = C or R=DR = D.

Likewise, the sum h2+h3h_2+h_3 becomes smaller if XR|XR| becomes larger, so again the minimum is reached if Q=CQ = C or R=DR = D. \square

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