Let be a triangle in which ; be the median and be the angle bisector with on . Let be a point on such that is parallel to . Prove that is perpendicular to .
India — Team Selection Test, 2009
Solution
Extend to meet the circum-circle of in , and join . Let be the point of intersection of and . Observe that and are collinear. We show that is similar to , which proves that is perpendicular to . It is sufficient to prove that . But , which gives . Thus we need to prove that
Since is a transversal in the triangle . Menelaus' theorem gives
But is parallel to , so that . This implies that
Thus
All we need to show is . Since , the result follows.
Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track
puts 2,604 problems in a working order, from Junior Challenge level to the IMO shortlist.