Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.8 AIME, harder Prove it Austria

Let ABCABC be a non-isosceles triangle with circumcenter UU and incenter II. Assume that the bisector of the segment UIUI passes through the common point of the angle bisector of γ=ACB\gamma = \angle ACB with the circumcircle of ABCABC. Prove that γ\gamma is the second largest angle in the triangle ABCABC.
G. Baron, Vienna

Solution

Let wγw_\gamma be the angle bisector of γ\gamma, kk the circumcircle of ABCABC and D=kwγD = k \cap w_\gamma. Since DCB=DCA\angle DCB = \angle DCA we certainly have DA=DB|DA| = |DB|. Considering the triangle DBIDBI, we note that CDB=CAB=α\angle CDB = \angle CAB = \alpha. Also, DBI=DBA+ABI=DCA+ABI=γ2+β2\angle DBI = \angle DBA + \angle ABI = \angle DCA + \angle ABI = \frac{\gamma}{2} + \frac{\beta}{2}, and therefore DIB=180α(γ2+β2)=γ2+β2\angle DIB = 180^\circ - \alpha - (\frac{\gamma}{2} + \frac{\beta}{2}) = \frac{\gamma}{2} + \frac{\beta}{2}. We see that DBIDBI is isosceles with DI=DB|DI| = |DB|. Furthermore, since DD lies on the bisector of UIUI, we also have DU=DI|DU| = |DI|. It follows that DD is the mid-point of a circle through all four points AA, BB, II and UU.
Figure 1
Since UU is the mid-point of the circumcircle of ABCABC, we have AUB=2ACB=2γ\angle AUB = 2 \cdot \angle ACB = 2\gamma. On the other hand, since IAB=α2\angle IAB = \frac{\alpha}{2} and IBA=β2\angle IBA = \frac{\beta}{2}, we have AIB=180α2β2\angle AIB = 180^\circ - \frac{\alpha}{2} - \frac{\beta}{2}. Since AA, BB, II and UU lie on a common circle, we have AUB=AIB\angle AUB = \angle AIB, and therefore 2ACB=2γ=180α2β22 \cdot \angle ACB = 2\gamma = 180^\circ - \frac{\alpha}{2} - \frac{\beta}{2}, which is equivalent to γ=12(α+β)\gamma = \frac{1}{2}(\alpha + \beta). Since the value of γ\gamma is the arithmetic mean of the values of the angles α\alpha and β\beta, it is certainly the second largest angle in the triangle ABCABC as claimed. \square

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