Olympiad Maths Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.0 AIME, harder Prove it Ukraine

Let ABCABC be an acute angle triangle, where AB<ACAB < AC, and let MM be the midpoint of BCBC, and KK be the midpoint of the polygonal chain BACBAC. Show that 2KM>AB\sqrt{2} KM > AB.

(Heorhii Naumenko)

Figure 1

Solution

Let NN be the midpoint of ACAC. Since KK is the midpoint of polygonal chain BACBAC, the following holds (Fig. 15):
12(AB+AC)=KC=KN+NC=KN+12ACKN=12AB=NM. \frac{1}{2}(AB + AC) = KC = KN + NC = KN + \frac{1}{2}AC \Rightarrow KN = \frac{1}{2}AB = NM.
By the cosine theorem for KNM\triangle KNM:
KM2=KN2+NM22KNNMcosKNMKM2=2KN2(1cosKNM)=12AB2(1+cosCNM) \begin{aligned} & KM^2 = KN^2 + NM^2 - 2 \cdot KN \cdot NM \cdot \cos \angle KNM \\ & \Rightarrow KM^2 = 2KN^2(1 - \cos \angle KNM) = \frac{1}{2} AB^2 (1 + \cos \angle CNM) \end{aligned}
Since ABC\triangle ABC is acute angled, CNM=CAB<90KM2>12AB2\angle CNM = \angle CAB < 90^\circ \Rightarrow KM^2 > \frac{1}{2} AB^2, that completes the proof.

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