Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /12 of 32

, 2010

Geometry Difficulty 5.1 AIME, harder Prove it Estonia

In an acute triangle ABCABC the angle CC is greater than the angle AA. Let AEAE be a diameter of the circumcircle of the triangle. Let the intersection point of the ray ACAC and the tangent of the circumcircle through the vertex BB be KK. The perpendicular to AEAE through KK intersects the circumcircle of the triangle BCKBCK for the second time at point DD. Prove that CECE bisects the angle BCDBCD.

Solution

Since AEAE is a diameter of the circumcircle of the triangle ABCABC, ACE=ECK=90\angle ACE = \angle ECK = 90^\circ. So it suffices to show that ACB=DCK\angle ACB = \angle DCK (Fig. 19).

Let LL be the point of intersection of lines AEAE and DKDK. Then BAC=CBK=CDK\angle BAC = \angle CBK = \angle CDK by the inscribed angles theorem. Also ABC=AEC=CKD\angle ABC = \angle AEC = \angle CKD where the latter equality follows from the similarity of the right triangles ACEACE and ALKALK. Hence the two triangles ABCABC and DKCDKC are similar, and therefore ACB=DCK\angle ACB = \angle DCK.

Fig. 19
Figure 1

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.