Maths Olympiad Prep

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Ukrajina, 2008

Geometry Difficulty 5.7 AIME, harder Prove it Ukraine

Point MM is placed on the side BCBC of the triangle ABCABC so that BM=ACBM = AC. HH is the foot of the perpendicular dropped on AMAM from point BB. We know that BH=CMBH = CM, and ∠MAC=30∘\angle MAC = 30^\circ. Find degree measure of the ∠ACB\angle ACB.

Answer: 15∘15^\circ or 105∘105^\circ.

Solution

Let AC=BM=bAC = BM = b, BH=MC=hBH = MC = h. We can easily show that point HH can not be on the segment AMAM. Let's consider two cases.

1) Point HH is on the ray MAMA (fig.1).
Let's draw perpendicular LC⊥AMLC \perp AM, point LL is on the line AMAM. As one of the angles of the right-angled triangle ALCALC is 30∘30^\circ, LC=12bLC = \frac{1}{2}b. Therefore, ∠MCL=∠MBH⇒\angle MCL = \angle MBH \Rightarrow

Figure 1
Fig.1

cos⁡∠MCL=LCMC=b2h=cos⁡∠MBH=BHBM=hb⇒b2h=hb\cos \angle MCL = \frac{LC}{MC} = \frac{b}{2h} = \cos \angle MBH = \frac{BH}{BM} = \frac{h}{b} \Rightarrow \frac{b}{2h} = \frac{h}{b} and b2=2h2b^2 = 2h^2, which means that cos⁡∠MCL=b2h=12\cos \angle MCL = \frac{b}{2h} = \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}} and ∠MCL=45∘\angle MCL = 45^\circ. Since ∠LCA=60∘\angle LCA = 60^\circ, ∠ACB=15∘\angle ACB = 15^\circ.

2) The point HH is on the ray AMAM (fig.2). Let's draw perpendicular LC⊥AMLC \perp AM, the point LL is on the line AMAM. Further we solve the problem as in the first case, and find that ∠MCL=45∘\angle MCL = 45^\circ. Since ∠LCA=60∘\angle LCA = 60^\circ, ∠ACB=15∘\angle ACB = 15^\circ.

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