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Geometry Difficulty 8.0 National Olympiad, round 2 Prove it Hong Kong

ABCABC is a triangle; ABXABX, BCYBCY and CAZCAZ are similar isosceles triangles outside ABCABC such that XA=XBXA = XB, YB=YCYB = YC and ZC=ZAZC = ZA.
Prove that AYAY, BZBZ and CXCX are concurrent.

Solution

This is a special case of Jacobi's theorem. Alternatively, by Ceva's theorem, it suffices to prove
sinACXsinBCX×sinBAYsinCAY×sinCBZsinABZ=1. \frac{\sin \angle ACX}{\sin \angle BCX} \times \frac{\sin \angle BAY}{\sin \angle CAY} \times \frac{\sin \angle CBZ}{\sin \angle ABZ} = 1.
Applying the sine law to ACX\triangle ACX and BCX\triangle BCX, we obtain
sinACX=AX×sinCAXCX,sinBCX=BX×sinCBXCX. \sin \angle ACX = AX \times \frac{\sin \angle CAX}{CX}, \quad \sin \angle BCX = BX \times \frac{\sin \angle CBX}{CX}.

Combining these, since AX=BXAX = BX, we get
sinACXsinBCX=sinCAXsinCBX. \frac{\sin \angle ACX}{\sin \angle BCX} = \frac{\sin \angle CAX}{\sin \angle CBX}.
Similarly, we find that
sinACXsinBCX×sinBAYsinCAY×sinCBZsinABZ=sinCAXsinCBX×sinABYsinACY×sinBCZsinBAZ. \frac{\sin \angle ACX}{\sin \angle BCX} \times \frac{\sin \angle BAY}{\sin \angle CAY} \times \frac{\sin \angle CBZ}{\sin \angle ABZ} = \frac{\sin \angle CAX}{\sin \angle CBX} \times \frac{\sin \angle ABY}{\sin \angle ACY} \times \frac{\sin \angle BCZ}{\sin \angle BAZ}.
Note that CAX=BAZ\angle CAX = \angle BAZ, ABY=CBX\angle ABY = \angle CBX and BCZ=ACY\angle BCZ = \angle ACY. Therefore, this is equal to 1, and we are done.

Figure 1

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