Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /7 of 10

, 2019

Geometry Difficulty 5.5 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:
Let ABCABC be a triangle with AB=13AB = 13, BC=14BC = 14, CA=15CA = 15. Let HH be the orthocenter of ABCABC. Find the radius of the circle with nonzero radius tangent to the circumcircles of AHBAHB, BHCBHC, CHACHA.

Solutions — 2

Solution 1

Solution:
We claim that the circle in question is the circumcircle of the anticomplementary triangle of ABCABC, the triangle for which ABCABC is the medial triangle.

Let ABCA'B'C' be the anticomplementary triangle of ABCABC, such that AA is the midpoint of BCB'C', BB is the midpoint of ACA'C', and CC is the midpoint of ABA'B'. Denote by ω\omega the circumcircle of ABCA'B'C'. Denote by ωA\omega_A the circumcircle of BHCBHC, and similarly define ωB\omega_B, ωC\omega_C.

Since BAC=BAC=180BHC\angle BA'C = \angle BAC = 180^\circ - \angle BHC, we have that ωA\omega_A passes through AA'. Thus, ωA\omega_A can be redefined as the circumcircle of ABCA'BC. Since triangle ABCA'B'C' is triangle ABCA'BC dilated by a factor of 22 from point AA', ω\omega is ωA\omega_A dilated by a factor of 22 from point AA'. Thus, circles ω\omega and ωA\omega_A are tangent at AA'.

By a similar logic, ω\omega is also tangent to ωB\omega_B and ωC\omega_C. Therefore, the circumcircle of the anticomplementary triangle of ABCABC is indeed the circle that the question is asking for.

Using the formula R=abc4AR = \frac{abc}{4A}, we can find that the circumradius of triangle ABCABC is 658\frac{65}{8}. The circumradius of the anticomplementary triangle is double of that, so the answer is 654\frac{65}{4}.

Solution 2

Solution:
It is well-known that the circumcircle of AHBAHB is the reflection of the circumcircle of ABCABC over ABAB. In particular, the circumcircle of AHBAHB has radius equal to the circumradius R=658R = \frac{65}{8}. Similarly, the circumcircles of BHCBHC and CHACHA have radii RR. Since HH lies on all three circles (in the question), the circle centered at HH with radius 2R=6542R = \frac{65}{4} is tangent to each circle at the antipode of HH in that circle.

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