Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /4 of 4

Geometry Difficulty 7.9 National Olympiad, round 2 Prove it Romania

A diagonal line of a (not necessarily convex) polygon with at least four sides is any line through two non-adjacent vertices of that polygon. Determine all polygons with at least four sides satisfying the following condition: The reflexion of each vertex in each diagonal line lies inside or on the boundary of the polygon.

Solution

Begin by noticing that KK is convex: Otherwise, the convex hull K^\hat{K} of KK would have a side abab whose line of support is a diagonal line of KK (aa and bb are, of course, non-adjacent vertices of KK and there might virtually be other vertices or even sides of KK along the line segment abab). The reflexion of a third vertex of K^\hat{K}, and hence of KK, in the line abab would then fall outside K^\hat{K}, and hence outside KK, contradicting the vertex reflexion condition KK satisfies.

Next, let aa, bb and cc be consecutive vertices of KK, and let da,b,cd \ne a, b, c be a fourth vertex. Since the reflexions of aa and cc in the line bdbd do not fall outside KK, it follows that bdbd is the internal bisectrix of the angle abcabc, and, by convexity, aa and cc are reflexions of one another in the line bdbd.

Consequently, KK is a convex quadrangle abcdabcd such that aa and cc are reflexions of one another in the line bdbd, and bb and dd are reflexions of one another in the line acac; that is, KK is a lozenge (rhombus).

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.