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Geometry Difficulty 6.4 National Olympiad Prove it Iran

Three non-planar rings are located in the space.
a) Is it always possible to find a circle that passes through all three circles?
b) Is it always possible to find a square that passes through all three circles?

Solution

a) No! As a counterexample, consider three small equal circles on the circumference of a sphere. Each of these circles divides the circumference of the sphere into two parts. Call the smaller part for each circle its "inner domain", and assume that the inner domains of these circles are mutually disjoint. Now, if there exists a circle that passes through all three of these circles, it must intersect the sphere in at least three points (it must intersect each inner domain at one point) which is impossible, since any circle that is not on the circumference of a sphere meets it in at most two points.

b) Yes. Consider three circles CRC_R, CBC_B and CGC_G in the space such that no two of them are co-planar. Denote the plane containing CiC_i by πi\pi_i (for i{R,B,G}i \in \{R, B, G\}). For each circle CiC_i, let XiX_i be a point in the plane πi\pi_i lying inside CiC_i, and choose them so that these three points are not collinear, so they form a plane, say π\pi. Due to our assumption plane π\pi meets each circle at exactly two points. Denote these intersection points by {G1,G2}\{G_1, G_2\}, {B1,B2}\{B_1, B_2\} and {R1,R2}\{R_1, R_2\}, respectively. Now, the goal is to find a square in π\pi that intersects each of the three segments G1G2G_1G_2, B1B2B_1B_2 and R1R2R_1R_2 at exactly one inner point (not an endpoint). Obviously, since this square separates each pair of points, it must pass through all three circles and hence is the desired square. To show its existence, first a lemma is proved.

Lemma. For points XX, YY, AA and BB in the plane where XYXY is not parallel to ABAB, a square exists that passes through points XX and YY and separates AA from BB.

Proof. First, suppose that XYXY is not perpendicular to ABAB. If line XYXY separates AA from BB, a large square with XX and YY both on one of its sides works.

Figure 1

On the other hand, if both points AA and BB lie on one side of line XYXY, depending on the distance from AA and BB to XYXY and the position of the feet of perpendicular lines from these two points to line XYXY, a suitable square as depicted in the following figures can be found.

Figure 2

If XYABXY \perp AB, the argument must be changed only when the intersection point of ABAB and XYXY lies outside of both segments. In this case, a suitable square can be found like the following figure.

Figure 3

Since points R1,R2,B1R_1, R_2, B_1 and B2B_2 are not collinear, points XX on R1R2R_1R_2 and YY on B1B2B_1B_2 exist such that line XYXY does not contain any point from R1R2R_1R_2 and B1B2B_1B_2 other than XX and YY and also, G1G2G_1G_2 is not parallel to XYXY. According to the lemma, a square passing through XX and YY (and no other point on R1R2R_1R_2 and B1B2B_1B_2) and separating G1G_1 from G2G_2 exist, which completes the proof.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.