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Cesko-Slovacko-Poljsko, 2013

Geometry Difficulty 5.4 AIME, harder Prove it Czech-Polish-Slovak Mathematical Match

Given triangle ABCABC and its circumcircle. Point PP is midpoint of arc BACBAC. Circle with diameter CPCP cuts angle bisector of ∠BAC\angle BAC at points K,LK, L (point KK lies closer to AA than LL). Point MM is symmetric to LL with respect to line BCBC. Prove that circumcircle of triangle BKMBKM bisects segment BCBC.

Solutions — 2

Solution 1

Let DD be the midpoint of arc BCBC, NN the midpoint of BCBC, XX the orthogonal projection of PP onto ACAC. Then points P,X,K,L,N,CP, X, K, L, N, C are concyclic (Fig. 7).

Figure 1
Fig. 7

We have ∠PNX=∠PCA=∠PDA\angle PNX = \angle PCA = \angle PDA therefore XN∥KLXN \parallel KL. It follows that LN=KXLN = KX, and ∠LCN=∠KCA\angle LCN = \angle KCA. Obviously ∠BAK=∠LAC\angle BAK = \angle LAC, so K,LK, L are isogonal conjugates with respect to triangle ABCABC. Thus following equalities hold: ∠MBC=∠CBL=∠KBA\angle MBC = \angle CBL = \angle KBA and ∠BCM=∠LCB=∠ACK\angle BCM = \angle LCB = \angle ACK. This implies that A,MA, M are isogonal conjugates with respect to triangle KBCKBC. Using this we get ∠BNM=∠LNB=∠LKC=∠BKM\angle BNM = \angle LNB = \angle LKC = \angle BKM therefore points B,M,N,KB, M, N, K are concyclic.

Solution 2

In the first solution, it is proven that points K,LK, L are isogonal conjugates with respect to ABCABC. Thus angle bisectors of ∠CBA\angle CBA and ∠BCA\angle BCA are angle bisectors of ∠LBK\angle LBK and ∠KCL\angle KCL, respectively. From angle bisector theorem we deduce that BK/BL=KC/LCBK/BL = KC/LC. This means that points K,LK, L lie on Apollonian circle ω\omega of points B,CB, C. Since ω\omega is self-symmetric with respect to line BCBC, we get that MM lies on ω\omega (Fig. 8).

Figure 2
Fig. 8

Let ω\omega intersect segment BCBC at point YY. Then KYKY is angle bisector of both angles ∠MKL\angle MKL (because YY is the midpoint of arc LMLM) and ∠BKC\angle BKC (because KK lies on Apollonian circle). Therefore ∠BKM=∠LKC\angle BKM = \angle LKC. We end proof as we did in the first solution.

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