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South-Afrika, 2011

Geometry Difficulty 4.6 AIME Prove it South Africa

In a convex quadrilateral ABCDABCD the sides ABAB, BCBC, CDCD are equal and AC=BD=ADAC = BD = AD. Find the angles of ABCDABCD.

Solution

Notice that △ABC≡△BCD\triangle ABC \equiv \triangle BCD (s, s, s) and △ABD≡△DCA\triangle ABD \equiv \triangle DCA (s, s, s).
Let α=∠CBD=∠BCA=∠CAB=∠CDB\alpha = \angle CBD = \angle BCA = \angle CAB = \angle CDB
and β=∠ACD=∠ADC=∠BAD=∠ABD\beta = \angle ACD = \angle ADC = \angle BAD = \angle ABD.

Figure 1

It can then be seen that 3α+β=180∘3\alpha + \beta = 180^\circ from triangle ABCABC and 4β+2α=360∘4\beta + 2\alpha = 360^\circ from quadrilateral ABCDABCD. Solving these two simultaneous equations gives α=36∘\alpha = 36^\circ and β=72∘\beta = 72^\circ. Hence ∠A=72∘\angle A = 72^\circ, ∠B=108∘\angle B = 108^\circ, ∠C=108∘\angle C = 108^\circ, ∠D=72∘\angle D = 72^\circ.

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