Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / NMO Selection Tests for the Junior Balkan Mathematical Olympiad /41 of 62

NMO Selection Tests for the Junior Balkan Mathematical Olympiad

Geometry Difficulty 6.2 National Olympiad Prove it Romania

Let ABCABC be an acute triangle with AB≠ACAB \ne AC and HH its orthocenter. Consider a point DD on the side BCBC. The circumcircles of triangles ABDABD and ACDACD meet again ACAC and ABAB in EE and FF, respectively. Lines BEBE and CFCF meet in point PP. Prove that HPHP is parallel to BCBC if and only if the line ADAD contains the circumcenter of ABCABC.

Solution

We only show the proof in the case when E∈(AC)E \in (AC), F∈(AB)F \in (AB), the other cases being similar (the diagram on the left shows such a case).
From ∠PBC+∠PCB=∠EAD+∠FAD=∠BAC\angle PBC + \angle PCB = \angle EAD + \angle FAD = \angle BAC follows ∠BPC=180∘−∠BAC=∠BHC\angle BPC = 180^\circ - \angle BAC = \angle BHC, hence B,C,H,PB, C, H, P are concyclic.

Therefore HP∥BCHP \parallel BC is equivalent to B,C,P,HB, C, P, H being the vertices of an isosceles trapezoid, which translates into ∠HCB=∠PBC\angle HCB = \angle PBC. But ∠HCB=∠HAB\angle HCB = \angle HAB and ∠PBC=∠DAE\angle PBC = \angle DAE, hence ∠HCB=∠PBC⇔∠BAH=∠CAD\angle HCB = \angle PBC \Leftrightarrow \angle BAH = \angle CAD, which means that AHAH and ADAD are isogonals, i.e. ADAD passes through the circumcenter of ABCABC.

Figure 1

Another solution:

As above, ∠BPC=180∘−∠BAC=∠BHC\angle BPC = 180^\circ - \angle BAC = \angle BHC. This means that the reflections, H′H' and P′P', of HH and PP, respectively, across BCBC are on the circumcircle of ABCABC. Moreover, ∠BCF=∠BAD=∠BED\angle BCF = \angle BAD = \angle BED, hence CDPECDPE is cyclic. Then ∠CDP=∠AEB=∠ADB\angle CDP = \angle AEB = \angle ADB, which means that P′∈ADP' \in AD.

Now HP∥BC⇔H′P′∥BCHP \parallel BC \Leftrightarrow H'P' \parallel BC, which is equivalent to H′P′⊥AHH'P' \perp AH, i.e. ∠AH′P′=90∘\angle AH'P' = 90^\circ, and the conclusion follows readily.

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.

Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.