Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /20 of 22

Geometry Difficulty 9.0 Shortlist Prove it Germany

Problem:

Let ABCDABCD be a cyclic quadrilateral whose diagonals ACAC and BDBD intersect at the point EE and whose sides ADAD and BCBC lie on lines that intersect at the point FF. Let the midpoints of the segments ABAB and CDCD be denoted by GG and HH, respectively. Prove that the line EFEF is tangent at EE to the circle through EE, GG and HH.

Solution

Solution:

A homothety with center EE and scale factor 22 maps GG to GG' and HH to HH'. Then

(1) GHE = G’H’E\text{GHE = G'H'E}.

Since ABF = 180 - CBA = ADC\text{ABF = 180 - CBA = ADC} and FAB = 180 - BAD = DCB\text{FAB = 180 - BAD = DCB} (cyclic quadrilateral ABCDABCD), the triangles FBAFBA and FDCFDC are similar and are mapped onto each other by a glide reflection with center FF along the bisector of BFA\text{BFA}. Under this map, in particular ACA \rightarrow C, BDB \rightarrow D, GHG \rightarrow H (midpoints!).

By the definition of HH', the diagonals EHEH' and CDCD bisect each other; hence DECHDECH' is a parallelogram and we have H’CD = EDC = BDC = BAC = BAE\text{H'CD = EDC = BDC = BAC = BAE}. Analogously, CDH’ = EBA\text{CDH' = EBA}. Thus the triangles ABEABE and CDHCDH'

Figure 1

are similar. Because of the similarity of FBAFBA and FDCFDC, the quadrilaterals FBEAFBEA and FDHCFDH'C are also similar, so that under the glide reflection under consideration EE is mapped to HH'. Hence the triangles FGEFGE and FHHFHH' are similar, and we have

(2) GEF = HH’F = EH’F\text{GEF = HH'F = EH'F}.

Let CC' and DD' be the preimages of AA and BB, respectively, under the glide reflection under consideration. Then, because of the similarity of the triangles FCDFC'D' and FABFAB and because FB/FD=FD/FB|FB| / |FD'| = |FD| / |FB|, the quadrilateral DCBAD'C'BA is a cyclic quadrilateral similar to BADCBADC. Let its diagonal intersection point be GG''. Then G”AB = C’AB = C’D’B = ABD = ABE\text{G''AB = C'AB = C'D'B = ABD = ABE} holds, and it follows that GABEG''A \parallel BE and analogously GBAEG''B \parallel AE. Hence AGBEAG''BE is a parallelogram, and by the definition of GG' we have G=GG' = G''. Consequently, GG' is mapped to EE under the glide reflection under consideration. But since EE is mapped to HH', under the two-fold application of the map GG' is mapped to HH'. In this two-fold application the two reflections cancel each other out, leaving a homothety centered at FF. Therefore FF, GG' and HH' are collinear. From this it follows that

(3) FH’E = G’H’E\text{FH'E = G'H'E}.

From (1), (2) and (3) it now follows that GHE = G’H’E = FH’E = FEG\text{GHE = G'H'E = FH'E = FEG}.

From the converse of the tangent-chord angle theorem it follows that FEFE is tangent to the circle through EE, GG and HH.

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement translated into English from de; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.