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Geometry Difficulty 6.9 National olympiad Prove it Romania

a) Let OO be the origin of the complex plane and consider the points AA and BB, whose complex coordinates are aa and bb, respectively. Prove that [OAB]=14aˉbaˉbˉ[OAB] = \frac{1}{4} |\bar{a}b - \bar{a}\bar{b}|, where [OAB][OAB] denotes the area of triangle OABOAB.

b) Let ABCABC be an equilateral triangle, CC its circumcircle, and OO its circumcenter. If a point PP lies in the interior of CC, let S(P)S(P) denote the area of the triangle whose side lengths equal the distances from PP to the triangle's sides². Let P1P_1 and P2P_2 be two distinct points in the interior of CC. Prove that S(P1)=S(P2)S(P_1) = S(P_2) if and only if OP1=OP2OP_1 = OP_2.

²The existence of such a triangle is a famous result of the Romanian mathematician Dimitrie Pompeiu (1873-1954).

Solution

a) If the triangle OABOAB is oriented counterclockwise, then m(AOB)=argbam(\angle AOB) = \arg\frac{b}{a}, otherwise m(AOB)=argabm(\angle AOB) = \arg\frac{a}{b}. Then
sin(AOB)=a2b(babˉaˉ)=abab2ab \sin(\angle AOB) = \left| \frac{|a|}{2|b|} \left( \frac{b}{a} - \frac{\bar{b}}{\bar{a}} \right) \right| = \frac{|\overline{ab} - \overline{ab}|}{2|a||b|}
and since [OAB]=12OAOBsin(AOB)[OAB] = \frac{1}{2} OA \cdot OB \cdot \sin(\angle AOB), we obtain the conclusion.

b) Let ε=cos2π3+isin2π3\varepsilon = \cos \frac{2\pi}{3} + i \sin \frac{2\pi}{3}. We may assume that the complex coordinates of the points AA, BB and CC are 11, ε\varepsilon, and ε2\varepsilon^2, respectively. Let PP be a point with complex coordinate pp, in the interior of the circle. Then (p1)+ε(pε)+ε2(pε2)=0(p-1) + \varepsilon(p-\varepsilon) + \varepsilon^2(p-\varepsilon^2) = 0. Consider the points D(p1)D(p-1), E(ε(pε))E(\varepsilon(p-\varepsilon)) and F(ε2(pε2))F(\varepsilon^2(p-\varepsilon^2)). Observe that, OD=PAOD = PA, OE=PBOE = PB and OF=PCOF = PC.
Let JJ be a point such that ODJFODJF is a parallelogram. We obtain that the complex coordinates of points JJ and FF are opposite numbers. Then OJ=PCOJ = PC, and the side lengths of ODJODJ are PAPA, PBPB, and PCPC. But
[ODJ]=[ODE]=14(pˉ1)ε(pε)(p1)εˉ(pˉεˉ)=14((εε2)p2(εε2))=34p21 \begin{aligned} [ODJ] &= [ODE] = \frac{1}{4} |(\bar{p}-1) \cdot \varepsilon \cdot (p-\varepsilon) - (p-1) \cdot \bar{\varepsilon} \cdot (\bar{p}-\bar{\varepsilon})| \\ &= \frac{1}{4} ((\varepsilon - \varepsilon^2) |p|^2 - (\varepsilon - \varepsilon^2)) = \frac{\sqrt{3}}{4} |p|^2 - 1 \end{aligned}
Since p<1|p| < 1, we obtain [ODE]=S(P)=34(1p2)[ODE] = S(P) = \frac{\sqrt{3}}{4} (1 - |p|^2), from which the conclusion follows easily.

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