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Geometry Difficulty 4.8 AIME Prove it Ireland

Prove that a line through the centroid of a triangle that bisects the area of the triangle is a median.

Solution

Let FHFH, with FF on ABAB and HH on ACAC, bisect the area of ABC\triangle ABC. Let the midpoints of ABAB and ACAC be EE and DD respectively and let the centroid of ABC\triangle ABC be GG. Assume FHFH passes through GG and is not a median, i.e. FEF \ne E and HDH \ne D.

Since CECE bisects the area of ABC\angle ABC then the area of BFHCBFHC is equal to the area of BECBEC, hence the area of GHCGHC is equal to the area of FEGFEG. This means that
12GHGCsinHGC=12FGEGsinFGE, \frac{1}{2}|GH| \cdot |GC| \sin \angle HGC = \frac{1}{2}|FG| \cdot |EG| \sin \angle FGE,
hence
GHGC=FGEG=12FGGC, |GH| \cdot |GC| = |FG| \cdot |EG| = \frac{1}{2} |FG| \cdot |GC|,
the last equality because of EG=12GC|EG| = \frac{1}{2}|GC|. This implies GH=12FG|GH| = \frac{1}{2}|FG|. Because GD=12BG|GD| = \frac{1}{2}|BG| we get GDHFGB\triangle GDH \sim \triangle FGB and so GDH=FBG\angle GDH = \angle FBG hence ABACAB \parallel AC. This is impossible so FHFH cannot bisect the area of ABC\angle ABC unless it is a median.

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