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Geometry Difficulty 4.3 AIME Prove it Ireland

A point PP, not the centre, lies inside a circle of radius rr. A point AA lies on the circumference of the circle and EE is the mid-point of APAP. Prove that there exists a circle of radius r/2r/2 that contains EE for all possible positions of AA, whereby PP remains fixed.

Solutions — 2

Solution 1

Draw the diameter HKHK that passes through PP and let CC and DD be the mid-points of PKPK and PHPH, respectively.

Figure 1

Since EE is the mid-point of APAP, ECEC is parallel to AKAK and EDED is parallel to AHAH. This implies that DEC\angle DEC is similar to HAK\angle HAK, and so DEC=HAK\angle DEC = \angle HAK. Because HKHK is a diameter, this shows that DEC=90\angle DEC = 90^\circ. This implies that EE is on the circle with diameter CDCD the radius of which is equal to CD/2|CD|/2. Because
CD=CP+PD=KP2+PH2=HK2=r |CD| = |CP| + |PD| = \frac{|KP|}{2} + \frac{|PH|}{2} = \frac{|HK|}{2} = r
hence, EE is on the circle with radius r/2r/2 which has CDCD as a diameter.

Solution 2

Figure 2

Let QQ be the mid-point of POPO. Then
POPQ=21=PAPE, \frac{|PO|}{|PQ|} = \frac{2}{1} = \frac{|PA|}{|PE|},
hence, OAOA is parallel to QEQE. This implies that OAQE=12\frac{|OA|}{|QE|} = \frac{1}{2}, i.e. QE=OA/2=r/2|QE| = |OA|/2 = r/2. This means that all possible EE are on the circle centre QQ

of radius r/2r/2. This circle is the image of the original circle under the homothety with centre PP and factor 1/21/2.

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