Let be a triangle, let be the foot of the bisector relative to and let be the foot of the trisector relative to closer to side (that is, is the point on such that ). Let and be two points on line , on the side of with respect to , such that and . Prove that the quadrilateral is inscribable in a circle if and only if the lines and are parallel.
Solution
Let us first set , so that and .
If the quadrilateral is cyclic, then , since it subtends the same arc as the angle . On the other hand, since by construction, the angles and are complementary, so is orthogonal to .
Now, , hence . But then ; this implies that the quadrilateral is cyclic, and hence . Since they form congruent corresponding angles with the transversal line , the lines and are therefore parallel.
Suppose now that the lines and are parallel. The corresponding angles and formed with line must be congruent, hence both equal to (since triangle is isosceles). It follows that ; hence is supplementary to , and the quadrilateral is cyclic. But then (where the first equality follows from the parallelism and the second from the cyclicity of ); hence the quadrilateral is also cyclic.