Points and lie inside a square such that the two triangles and are equilateral. Show that is an equilateral triangle.
Solutions — 2
Solution 1
We have . Since , triangle is isosceles, which means that and . By symmetry, we also have , thus .
Again by symmetry (with respect to the diagonal ), , so is an isosceles triangle with an angle of . Therefore, is indeed an equilateral triangle.
Solution 2
Let and be the midpoints of and respectively, and let be the centre of the square. We denote the side length of the square and the two equilateral triangles by . By Pythagoras' Theorem,
so . Next we find , and by symmetry .
Applying Pythagoras' Theorem again, we obtain
and
Thus , and by symmetry . This means that is an equilateral triangle.
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