Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /171 of 264

Geometry Difficulty 6.1 National Olympiad Prove it Romania

Let VABCVABC be a regular pyramid with the base ABCABC having center OO. Denote II and HH the incenter and the orthocenter of the triangle VBCVBC and suppose that AH=3OIAH = 3OI. Find the measure of the angle made by a lateral edge of the pyramid with the plane of the base.
Mircea Fianu

Solution

Denote MM the midpoint of the edge [BC][BC]. Since triangle VBCVBC is isosceles with VB=VCVB = VC, the points VV, HH, II and MM are collinear.

From ACOBAC \perp OB and ACOVAC \perp OV follows AC(BOV)AC \perp (BOV), hence VBACVB \perp AC, which, together with VBCHVB \perp CH leads to VB(ACH)VB \perp (ACH), whence AHVBAH \perp VB. In the same way AHVCAH \perp VC, therefore AH(VBC)AH \perp (VBC), so AHVMAH \perp VM.

Denote II' the projection of OO onto the plane (VBC)(VBC); then II' belongs to VMVM and OIAHOI' \parallel AH. This leads to

Figure 1

OIAH=MOMA=13, \frac{OI'}{AH} = \frac{MO}{MA} = \frac{1}{3},

hence AH=3OIAH = 3OI'. This shows that OIOI equals the distance from OO to (VBC)(VBC), therefore I=II = I'.

From OI(VBC)OI \perp (VBC) and II = incenter of the triangle VBCVBC follows that OO has equal distances to the lines VBVB and BCBC.

Denote JJ the projection of OO onto the line VBVB. Then OJ=OMOJ = OM, hence the right triangles OJBOJB and OMBOMB are congruent.

This leads to m((VB,(ABC)))=m(VBO)=m(MBO)=30m(\angle (VB, (ABC))) = m(\angle VBO) = m(\angle MBO) = 30^\circ.

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

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