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Geometry Difficulty 6.0 National olympiad Prove it China

Suppose the sum of distances from any point PP in a convex quadrilateral ABCDABCD to lines ABAB, BCBC, CDCD and DADA is constant. Prove that ABCDABCD is a parallelogram. (posed by Xiong Bin)

Solution

Let d(P,l)d(P, l) denote the distance from point PP to line ll. We first prove the following lemma.

Lemma Let SAT=α\angle SAT = \alpha be a given angle and PP a moving point in SAT\angle SAT. If the sum of distances from PP to lines ASAS and ATAT is a constant number mm, then the trace of PP is a segment of BCBC with points BB and CC on ASAS and ATAT respectively, and AB=AC=msinαAB = AC = \frac{m}{\sin \alpha}. Further, if a point QQ lies inside ABC\triangle ABC, then the sum of distances from QQ to lines ASAS and ATAT is less than mm, and it is greater than mm if QQ lies outside ABC\triangle ABC.

Figure 1

Proof of Lemma For AB=AC=msinαAB = AC = \frac{m}{\sin \alpha} and PP on BCBC, we have SPAB+SPAC=SABCS_{\triangle PAB} + S_{\triangle PAC} = S_{\triangle ABC}, i.e. 12ABd(P,AB)+12ACd(P,AC)=12ABACsinα\frac{1}{2}AB \cdot d(P, AB) + \frac{1}{2}AC \cdot d(P, AC) = \frac{1}{2} \cdot AB \cdot AC \cdot \sin \alpha. Then d(P,AB)+d(P,AC)=md(P, AB) + d(P, AC) = m. If point QQ lies inside ABC\triangle ABC, SQAB+SQAC<SABCS_{\triangle QAB} + S_{\triangle QAC} < S_{\triangle ABC}, then d(Q,AB)+d(Q,AC)<md(Q, AB) + d(Q, AC) < m. If QQ lies outside ABC\triangle ABC, SQAB+SQAC>SABCS_{\triangle QAB} + S_{\triangle QAC} > S_{\triangle ABC}, then d(Q,AB)+d(Q,AC)>md(Q, AB) + d(Q, AC) > m. The proof of Lemma is complete.

We now consider the following two cases:

(1) Neither pair of the opposite sides of the quadrilateral ABCDABCD is parallel. We may assume that sides BCBC and ADAD meet at point FF and sides BABA and CDCD meet at point EE. Through point PP draw segments l1l_1 and l2l_2 such that the sum of distances from any point on l1l_1 to ABAB and CDCD is constant and the sum of distances from any point on l2l_2 to BCBC and ADAD is also constant. As seen in the second figure, for any point QQ in area SS, using the given condition and the lemma, we have

d(P,AB)+d(P,BC)+d(P,CD)+d(P,DA)=d(Q,AB)+d(Q,BC)+d(Q,CD)+d(Q,DA)=[d(Q,AB)+d(Q,CD)]+[d(Q,BC)+d(Q,DA)]>[d(P,AB)+d(P,CD)]+[d(P,BC)+d(P,DA)]. \begin{align*} d(P, AB) + d(P, BC) + d(P, CD) + d(P, DA) \\ &= d(Q, AB) + d(Q, BC) + d(Q, CD) + d(Q, DA) \\ &= [d(Q, AB) + d(Q, CD)] + [d(Q, BC) + d(Q, DA)] \\ &> [d(P, AB) + d(P, CD)] + [d(P, BC) + d(P, DA)]. \end{align*}

It leads to a contradiction.

(2) The quadrilateral ABCDABCD is a trapezoid. In the same way, we can also show that it will lead to a contradiction.

This completes the proof.

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