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Geometry Difficulty 6.5 National olympiad Prove it Czech Republic

Let ABCABC be an acute triangle with the perimeter of 2s2s. We are given three pairwise disjoint circles with pairwise disjoint interiors with the centres AA, BB and CC, respectively. Prove that there exists a circle with the radius of ss which contains all the three circles.

Solution

To simplify the formulations, we say that a point lies inside of the circle if it lies on that circle or in its interior. Assume we are given a circle ω\omega with the radius of rr and the centre OO. A circle ω\omega' with the centre OO' contains the circle ω\omega if and only if its radius is at least OO+rO'O + r.

Figure 1

Denote by rar_a, rbr_b, rcr_c the radii of our circles with the centres at AA, BB and CC, respectively. Using our observation three times indicates that the centre XX of the circle we are seeking has to meet sAX+ras \ge AX + r_a, or equivalently AXsraAX \le s - r_a, and analogously BXsrbBX \le s - r_b and CXsrcCX \le s - r_c.

Notice that the numbers sras - r_a, srbs - r_b and srcs - r_c are positive. We will show this for sras - r_a. Since our circles are disjoint with disjoint interiors, we know that ra<br_a < b and ra<cr_a < c. This gives us ra<(b+c)/2<(a+b+c)/2=sr_a < (b+c)/2 < (a+b+c)/2 = s, which indeed means that sras - r_a is a positive number.

Now we may consider three circles with the centres AA, BB and CC and radii sras - r_a, srbs - r_b and srcs - r_c, respectively. If we prove that there is a point XX lying inside each of them, we will be done.

Each two of these three circles intersect at two points, because for example (sra)+(srb)>2sc=a+b>c(s - r_a) + (s - r_b) > 2s - c = a + b > c (and also c>(sra)(srb)c > |(s - r_a) - (s - r_b)|). For the sake of contradiction assume there is no point lying inside all of them. Then the situation looks like on the picture, that is, there exists a point XX inside of the triangle which lies outside of the three circles (see the remark at the end):

Figure 2

For such XX we have AX+BX+CX>sra+srb+src>2sAX + BX + CX > s - r_a + s - r_b + s - r_c > 2s. This is not possible, however. Let YY be the intersection of BXBX and ACAC. Then using the triangle inequalities for the triangles CXYCXY, ABYABY we get
BX+CX<BX+XY+CY=BY+CY<AB+AY+CY=AB+AC. BX + CX < BX + XY + CY = BY + CY < AB + AY + CY = AB + AC.

Similarly AX+BX<AC+BCAX + BX < AC + BC and CX+AX<BC+ABCX + AX < BC + AB. Summing these three inequalities we obtain AX+BX+CX<AB+BC+AC=2sAX + BX + CX < AB + BC + AC = 2s, which is a contradiction.

Remark. If three circles ωa\omega_a, ωb\omega_b and ωc\omega_c with the centres AA, BB and CC, respectively, satisfy the conditions that each two of them intersect and there is no point lying inside all of the three circles, then there exists a point in the interior of the triangle ABCABC which lies outside of each of the three circles.

Figure 3

To prove this, consider the intersection point PP of ωb\omega_b and ωc\omega_c which lies in the halfplane determined by the line BCBC and the point AA. The intersection QQ of the ray BABA with ωb\omega_b lies inside of ωa\omega_a, since it is the closest point of ωb\omega_b to AA (this is true even if AA is inside of ωb\omega_b, since ωaωb\omega_a \cap \omega_b \neq \emptyset). Therefore AA cannot lie in the angle CBPCBP (otherwise QQ would lie inside all of the three circles). But that means PP lies in the interior of the angle CBACBA. Similarly PP lies in the interior of the angle BCABCA. So we have that PP lies in the interior of the triangle ABCABC. Since PP does not lie inside of ωa\omega_a, there is a point in the neighbourhood of PP lying outside of all the three circles.

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