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Geometry Difficulty 6.3 National Olympiad Prove it Taiwan

Given ABC\triangle ABC and three points D,E,FD, E, F such that: DB=DCDB = DC, EC=EAEC = EA, FA=FBFA = FB, and BDC=CEA=AFB\angle^*BDC = \angle^*CEA = \angle^*AFB (here \angle^* refers to directed angles). Let ΩD\Omega_D be the circle centered at DD passing through B,CB, C, and similarly define ΩE\Omega_E and ΩF\Omega_F. Prove that: the radical center of ΩD,ΩE,ΩF\Omega_D, \Omega_E, \Omega_F lies on the Euler line of DEF\triangle DEF.

Note: The Euler line of DEF\triangle DEF refers to the line passing through the orthocenter, centroid, and circumcenter of DEF\triangle DEF. The radical center of three circles refers to the point in the plane, for three circles in general position, that has equal power with respect to all three circles; that is, the common intersection point of the three pairwise radical axes of the circles.

Solution

Let TT be the intersection point of ΩE,ΩF\Omega_E, \Omega_F other than AA, and let ATAT meet the circumcircle of BTC\triangle BTC again at point HDH_D. From BCHD=BTA=12BFA=12CDB\angle^*BCH_D = \angle^*BTA = \frac{1}{2}\angle^*BFA = \frac{1}{2}\angle^*CDB, we know that BHDCDBH_D \perp CD. Similarly we obtain CHDBDCH_D \perp BD, so HDH_D is the orthocenter of BDC\triangle BDC.

Similarly, we can set HE,HFH_E, H_F to be the orthocenters of CEA,AFB\triangle CEA, \triangle AFB respectively, then BHE,CHFBH_E, CH_F are the radical axes of (ΩF,ΩD)(\Omega_F, \Omega_D) and (ΩD,ΩE)(\Omega_D, \Omega_E) respectively, that is, AHD,BHE,CHFAH_D, BH_E, CH_F are concurrent at the radical center PP of ΩD,ΩE,ΩF\Omega_D, \Omega_E, \Omega_F.

Let X,Y,ZX, Y, Z be the reflections of D,E,FD, E, F with respect to BC,CA,ABBC, CA, AB respectively.

From BXCBFA\triangle BXC \sim \triangle BFA, we get BCABXF\triangle BCA \sim \triangle BXF, so AEBF=CAAB=FXBF\frac{AE}{BF} = \frac{CA}{AB} = \frac{FX}{BF}, from which we know AE=FXAE = FX. Similarly we obtain AF=EXAF = EX, so AEXFAEXF is a parallelogram.

Let OO be the circumcenter of DEF\triangle DEF, and let QQ be the reflection of PP with respect to OO. Then from the above discussion we know that XQEFXQ \perp EF. Similarly, YQ,ZQYQ, ZQ are perpendicular to FD,DEFD, DE respectively. Let HH be the orthocenter of DEF\triangle DEF. Note that
DXDHD=EYEHE=FZFHF, \frac{DX}{DH_D} = \frac{EY}{EH_E} = \frac{FZ}{FH_F},
so H,P,QH, P, Q are collinear, that is, PP lies on the Euler line OHOH of DEF\triangle DEF. This completes the proof.

Figure 1

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement translated into English from zh; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.