Problem:
Let be an acute triangle. Let , and be the medians, which intersect at the centroid . Let , and be the midpoints of , and , respectively. Show that the six points , , , , , lie on a circle if and only if is equilateral.
Problem:
Let be an acute triangle. Let , and be the medians, which intersect at the centroid . Let , and be the midpoints of , and , respectively. Show that the six points , , , , , lie on a circle if and only if is equilateral.
Solution:
We observe that, considering the median , the three segments , and are equal to one another, since the centroid divides the median into two segments one twice the other and is by construction the midpoint of the longer of the two, . An analogous result holds for the other two medians.
Suppose we have an equilateral triangle, then the three medians are equal to one another, so the points , , , , , are equidistant from , that is, they lie on a circle centered at .
Suppose now that the six points , , , , , lie on a circle with center . This point lies on the perpendicular bisectors of the three segments , and and, since is the midpoint of each of them, and lie simultaneously on the perpendicular bisectors of these segments. Since the three perpendicular bisectors are distinct, it follows that and must coincide. But then , being radii of the same circle, and therefore the three medians of the triangle , which as stated earlier have length , , , are equal to one another. A triangle in which all the medians are equal is equilateral, since for every pair of equal medians it is isosceles on the two sides to which the medians are relative.