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Geometry Difficulty 7.6 National Olympiad, round 2 Prove it European Girls' Mathematical Olympiad (EGMO)

Problem:
Let ABCABC be an acute-angled triangle in which BC<ABBC < AB and BC<CABC < CA. Let point PP lie on segment ABAB and point QQ lie on segment ACAC such that PBP \neq B, QCQ \neq C and BQ=BC=CPBQ = BC = CP. Let TT be the circumcentre of triangle APQAPQ, HH the orthocentre of triangle ABCABC, and SS the point of intersection of the lines BQBQ and CPCP. Prove that TT, HH and SS are collinear.

Solutions — 3

Solution 1

Solution:
Figure 1
We show that TT and HH are both on the angle bisector \ell of BSC\angle BSC.

We first prove that HH \in \ell. The altitude CHCH in triangle ABCABC is also the altitude in isosceles triangle PBCPBC with CP=CBCP = CB. Therefore, CHCH is also the angle bisector of PCB\angle PCB and hence also of SCB\angle SCB. Analogously, BHBH is the angle bisector of SBC\angle SBC. We conclude that HH, as the intersection of two angle bisectors of BSC\triangle BSC, is also on the third angle bisector, which is \ell.

We now prove that TT \in \ell.

Variant 1. In the isosceles triangles BCP\triangle BCP and CBQ\triangle CBQ we see that BCP=1802B\angle BCP = 180^\circ - 2\angle B and CBQ=1802C\angle CBQ = 180^\circ - 2\angle C. This yields PSQ=BSC=180(1802B)(1802C)=1802A\angle PSQ = \angle BSC = 180^\circ - (180^\circ - 2\angle B) - (180^\circ - 2\angle C) = 180^\circ - 2\angle A. Furthermore, PTQ=2PAQ=2A\angle PTQ = 2\angle PAQ = 2\angle A (TT being circumcentre of APQ\triangle APQ). Now PTQ+PSQ=180\angle PTQ + \angle PSQ = 180^\circ, so PTQSPTQS is a cyclic quadrilateral. From PT=TQPT = TQ we then obtain that PST=PQT=QPT=QST\angle PST = \angle PQT = \angle QPT = \angle QST, so TT is on the angle bisector PSQ\angle PSQ, which is also \ell.

We conclude that TT, SS and HH are collinear.

Variant 2. Let RR be the second intersection of BQBQ and APQ\odot APQ.

APRQAPRQ is a cyclic quadrilateral, so PRS=A\angle PRS = \angle A, APR=BQC=C\angle APR = \angle BQC = \angle C. On the other hand BPC=B\angle BPC = \angle B. Therefore RPS=180BC=A\angle RPS = 180^\circ - \angle B - \angle C = \angle A. Hence, the triangle PRSPRS is isosceles with SP=SRSP = SR; then \ell is the perpendicular bisector of the chord PRPR in the circle that passes through TT.

Note that if BQBQ is tangent to APQ\odot APQ, then CPCP is also tangent to APQ\odot APQ and triangle ABCABC is isosceles, so TT, SS and HH lie on the altitude from AA.
Figure 2

Remark. The fact that CPCP is also tangent to APQ\odot APQ could be shown with PTQSPTQS being a cyclic quadrilateral like in the first variant of the solution. Otherwise we can consider RR the second intersection of CPCP and APQ\odot APQ and prove that triangle QRSQRS is isosceles.
Figure 3
Figure 4

Solution 2

Solution:
Figure 5
In the same way as in the previous solution, we see that PSQ=1802A\angle PSQ = 180^\circ - 2\angle A, so CSQ=2A\angle CSQ = 2\angle A. From the cyclic quadrilateral AEHDAEHD (with EE and DD feet of the altitudes CHCH and BHBH) we see that DHC=DAE=A\angle DHC = \angle DAE = \angle A. Since BHBH is the perpendicular bisector of CQCQ, we have DHQ=A\angle DHQ = \angle A as well, so CHQ=2A\angle CHQ = 2\angle A. From CHQ=2A=CSQ\angle CHQ = 2\angle A = \angle CSQ, we see CHSQCHSQ is a cyclic quadrilateral. This means QHS=QCS\angle QHS = \angle QCS.

Since triangles PTQPTQ and CHQCHQ are both isosceles with apex 2A2\angle A, we get PTQCHQ\triangle PTQ \sim \triangle CHQ. We see that one can be obtained from the other by a spiral similarity centered at QQ, so we also obtain QTHQPC\triangle QTH \sim \triangle QPC. This means that QHT=QCP\angle QHT = \angle QCP. Combining this with QHS=QCS\angle QHS = \angle QCS, we see that QHT=QCP=QCS=QHS\angle QHT = \angle QCP = \angle QCS = \angle QHS. So QHT=QHS\angle QHT = \angle QHS, which means that TT, SS and HH are collinear.

Solution 3

Solution:
Figure 6
Let us draw a parallel ff to BCBC through AA. Let B=BQfB' = BQ \cap f, C=CPfC' = CP \cap f. Then AQBCQBAQB' \sim CQB and APCBPCAPC' \sim BPC, therefore both QABQAB' and APCAPC' will be isosceles.

Also, BCSBCSBCS \sim B'C'S with respect to the similarity with center SS, therefore if we take the image of the line BHBH (which is the perpendicular bisector of the segment CQCQ) through this transformation, it will go through the point BB', and be perpendicular to AQAQ (as the image of CQCQ is parallel to CQCQ). As AQBAQB' is isosceles, this line is the perpendicular bisector of the segment AQAQ. This means it goes through TT, the circumcenter of APQAPQ. Similarly on the other side the image of CHCH also goes through TT. This means that the image of HH with respect to the similarity through SS will be TT, so TT, SS, HH are collinear.

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