Maths Olympiad Prep

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, 2022

Geometry Difficulty 5.9 AIME, harder Prove it Japan

Let ABCABC be an acute triangle with AB=11AB = 11, AC=10AC = 10, and denote the orthocenter by HH and the midpoint of BCBC by MM. Point PP in triangle ABCABC lies on the circumcircle of triangle BHCBHC and satisfies ABP=CPM\angle ABP = \angle CPM, PM=3PM = 3. Find the length of BCBC.

Solution

Let the radius of the circumcircles of triangle ABCABC and BHCBHC be RR and RR', respectively. From the sine theorem, we have BCsinBAC=2R\frac{BC}{\sin \angle BAC} = 2R and BCsinBHC=2R\frac{BC}{\sin \angle BHC} = 2R'. Also, by BHC=BAC+ABH+ACH=BAC+2(90BAC)=180BAC\angle BHC = \angle BAC + \angle ABH + \angle ACH = \angle BAC + 2 \cdot (90^\circ - \angle BAC) = 180^\circ - \angle BAC, we have sinBAC=sinBHC\sin \angle BAC = \sin \angle BHC. Therefore, R=RR = R'.

Denote the intersection of the circumcircle of triangle BHCBHC and line PMPM other than PP by QQ. Then we have PBQ=PBC+CBQ=PBC+CPQ=PBC+ABP=ABC\angle PBQ = \angle PBC + \angle CBQ = \angle PBC + \angle CPQ = \angle PBC + \angle ABP = \angle ABC. By the sine theorem, we get ACsinABC=2R=2R=PQsinPBQ\frac{AC}{\sin \angle ABC} = 2R = 2R' = \frac{PQ}{\sin \angle PBQ}, which implies PQ=AC=10PQ = AC = 10. Therefore, we obtain QM=PQPM=7QM = PQ - PM = 7, and by the power of a point theorem, we have BMCM=PMQM=21BM \cdot CM = PM \cdot QM = 21. Since BM=CMBM = CM, we obtain BM=21BM = \sqrt{21}, and the answer is BC=2BM=221BC = 2BM = 2\sqrt{21}.

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