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Geometry Difficulty 6.5 National olympiad Prove it Ireland

Let AA, BB, CC, DD, EE be five points on a circle such that AB=CD|AB| = |CD| and BC=DE|BC| = |DE|. The segments ADAD and BEBE intersect at FF. Let MM denote the midpoint of segment CDCD. Prove that the circle of center MM and radius MEME passes through the midpoint of segment AFAF.

Solution

Solution 1. Because the arcs ABAB and CDCD, as well as BCBC and DEDE are equal, the cyclic quadrilaterals ABCDABCD and BCDEBCDE are isosceles trapeziums with BCADBC \parallel AD and CDBECD \parallel BE. Hence, BFDCBFDC is a parallelogram. As a consequence we see that BF=CD=BA|BF| = |CD| = |BA| and so AFB\triangle AFB is isosceles.

Figure 1
Triangles EDM\triangle EDM and BCM\triangle BCM are congruent by SAS, since ED=BC|ED| = |BC|, EDC=DCB\angle EDC = \angle DCB in isosceles trapezium, and DM=12CD=CM|DM| = \frac{1}{2}|CD| = |CM|. Hence EM=MB|EM| = |MB|.

To complete the solution, we prove that MB=MN|MB| = |MN|, where NN is the midpoint of AFAF. Here are three ways doing so.

First way: Let PP be the midpoint of ABAB. Since MM, PP, NN are midpoints, PNBFCDPN \parallel BF \parallel CD and CM=12CD=12BF=NP|CM| = \frac{1}{2}|CD| = \frac{1}{2}|BF| = |NP|. This implies that CPNMCPNM is a parallelogram, in particular MN=CP|MN| = |CP|.
Figure 2
On the other hand, triangles CBP\triangle CBP and BCM\triangle BCM are congruent by SAS: BCBC common, C=B\angle C = \angle B in isosceles trapezium, and CM=12CD=12AB=BP|CM| = \frac{1}{2}|CD| = \frac{1}{2}|AB| = |BP|. This implies MB=CP=MN|MB| = |CP| = |MN|.

Figure 3
Because PMPM is the mid-line of the trapezium ABCDABCD, PMADPM \parallel AD and so FAB=MPB\angle FAB = \angle MPB and PNFSPNFS is a parallelogram where SS is the intersection point of PMPM and EBEB. Hence,
MPN=AFB=FAB=MPB \angle MPN = \angle AFB = \angle FAB = \angle MPB
where we have used again that AFB\triangle AFB is isosceles. We now conclude that triangles MPN\triangle MPN and MPB\triangle MPB are congruent by SAS: MPMP common, MPB=MPN\angle MPB = \angle MPN and PN=BP|PN| = |BP| as shown above. This implies MN=MB|MN| = |MB|.

Third way: As BAF\triangle BAF is isosceles and ADBCAD \parallel BC, we have BNAFBN \perp AF and BNBCBN \perp BC. Extend the line NMNM to meet line BCBC at QQ.
Figure 4
Since DNCQDN \parallel CQ and MM is midpoint of CDCD, we get MDNMCQ\triangle MDN \cong \triangle MCQ (ASA) and hence MM is the midpoint of NQNQ in the right angled triangle QBNQBN. This implies MN=MQ=MB|MN| = |MQ| = |MB|.

Solution 2
Let NN denote the midpoint of AFAF. We have ECD=EAF\angle ECD = \angle EAF since both are standing on the arc DEDE. Since the arcs ABAB and CDCD are equal, we also have DEC=FEA\angle DEC = \angle FEA. This shows that EDC\triangle EDC and EFA\triangle EFA are similar.
Figure 5

As a consequence, we have EDEF=CDAF\frac{|ED|}{|EF|} = \frac{|CD|}{|AF|}. Because MM and NN are the midpoints of CDCD and AFAF, we now get EDEF=MDNF\frac{|ED|}{|EF|} = \frac{|MD|}{|NF|}, which implies EDMEFN\triangle EDM \sim \triangle EFN since EDM=EDC=EFA=EFN\angle EDM = \angle EDC = \angle EFA = \angle EFN. Hence EDEF=EMEN\frac{|ED|}{|EF|} = \frac{|EM|}{|EN|}. From DEM=FEN\angle DEM = \angle FEN we obtain DEF=MEN\angle DEF = \angle MEN, hence EDF\triangle EDF is similar to EMN\triangle EMN.
We have seen above that FEA=DEC\angle FEA = \angle DEC, and we also have EAF=CEB\angle EAF = \angle CEB because the arcs on which they are standing, DEDE and BCBC, are equal. Therefore, EFD=FEA+EAF=DEC+CEB=DEF\angle EFD = \angle FEA + \angle EAF = \angle DEC + \angle CEB = \angle DEF. This means that EDF\triangle EDF is isosceles with ED=DF|ED| = |DF| and so EMN\triangle EMN is isosceles with EM=MN|EM| = |MN| as well.

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