Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.6 AIME, harder Prove it Croatia

Let ABCABC be an acute-angled triangle. Let point BB' be the reflection of BB across the line ACAC, and point CC' the reflection of CC across the line ABAB. Circles circumscribed to triangles ABBABB' and ACCACC' intersect at points AA and PP. Prove that the circumcentre of triangle ABCABC lies on the line APAP. (Russia 2005)

Solution

Denote α=BAC\alpha = \angle BAC, β=CBA\beta = \angle CBA and γ=ACB\gamma = \angle ACB, and let OO be the circumcentre of triangle ABCABC.
Figure 1
Point PP is on the circle circumscribed to triangle ACCACC', so APC=ACC\angle APC = \angle AC'C since they are subtended by AC\text{AC}. Because of the reflection, we have ACC=90BAC=90α\angle AC'C = 90^\circ - \angle BAC' = 90^\circ - \alpha.
Analogously, by observing the circle circumscribed to triangle ABBABB', we can conclude
APB=ABB=90α. \angle APB = \angle AB'B = 90^\circ - \alpha.
Therefore, CPB=APC+APB=1802α\angle CPB = \angle APC + \angle APB = 180^\circ - 2\alpha.
Since ACPCAC'PC is a cyclic quadrilateral, we have
CPC=180CABBAC=1802α. \angle CPC' = 180^\circ - \angle CAB - \angle BAC' = 180^\circ - 2\alpha.
Therefore, CPB=CPC\angle CPB = \angle CPC', so points PP, BB and CC' are collinear.
Let AA' be the point diametrically opposite point AA on the circle circumscribed to triangle ACCACC'. Since ABAB is the bisector of segment CC’\text{CC'}, point AA' lies on line ABAB. Therefore, ABP=ABC=β\angle A'BP = \angle ABC' = \beta. By Thales' theorem we have APA=90\angle APA' = 90^\circ, so
BPA=90APB=α. \angle BPA' = 90^\circ - \angle APB = \alpha.
Therefore, AAP=180αβ=γ\angle AA'P = 180^\circ - \alpha - \beta = \gamma and AAP=90AAP=90γ\angle A'AP = 90^\circ - \angle AA'P = 90^\circ - \gamma, i.e. BAP=90γ\angle BAP = 90^\circ - \gamma.
On the other hand, BOA=2γ\angle BOA = 2\gamma and BAO=90γ\angle BAO = 90^\circ - \gamma, so we can conclude that AA, OO and PP lie on the same line. This completes the proof.

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