Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /65 of 377

Geometry Difficulty 4.6 AIME Prove it United States

Problem:

Let the incircle of ABCDABCD be tangent to sides ABAB, BCBC, CDCD, and ADAD at points PP, QQ, RR, and SS, respectively. Show that ABCDABCD is cyclic if and only if PRQSPR \perp QS.

Solution

Solution:

Let the diagonals of PQRSPQRS intersect at TT. Because AP\overline{AP} and AS\overline{AS} are tangent to ω\omega at PP and SS, we may write α=ASP=SPA=SQP\alpha = \angle ASP = \angle SPA = \angle SQP and β=CQR=QRC=QPR\beta = \angle CQR = \angle QRC = \angle QPR. Then PTQ=παβ\angle PTQ = \pi - \alpha - \beta. On the other hand, PAS=π2α\angle PAS = \pi - 2\alpha and RCQ=π2β\angle RCQ = \pi - 2\beta, so that ABCDABCD is cyclic if and only if
π=BAD+DCB=2π2α2β \pi = \angle BAD + \angle DCB = 2\pi - 2\alpha - 2\beta
or simply
π/2=παβ=PTQ \pi/2 = \pi - \alpha - \beta = \angle PTQ
as desired.

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.