Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.8 AIME, harder Prove it Thailand

Let ABCABC be a triangle with ABACAB \neq AC. Let the angle bisector of BAC\angle BAC intersect BCBC at PP, and intersect the perpendicular bisector of segment BCBC at QQ. Prove that PQAQ=(BCAB+AC)2\frac{PQ}{AQ} = \left(\frac{BC}{AB+AC}\right)^2.

Solution

We first show that QQ lies on the circumcircle of triangle ABCABC.

Figure 1

Let the perpendicular bisector of BCBC intersect the circumcircle of ABCABC at QQ'. Since QQ' bisects the arc BCBC we have BAQ=CAQ\angle BAQ' = \angle CAQ'. Thus QQ' lies on the angle bisector of BAC\angle BAC. Hence Q=QQ = Q'.

Let BC=aBC = a, AC=bAC = b and AB=cAB = c. From the Angle Bisector Theorem we have

BP=acb+candPC=abb+c.(1) BP = \frac{ac}{b+c} \quad \text{and} \quad PC = \frac{ab}{b+c}. \qquad (1)

The triangles ABPABP and AQCAQC are similar, thus
cAP=AQb.(2) \frac{c}{AP} = \frac{AQ}{b}. \qquad (2)

On the other hand, computing the power of point PP with respect to the circumcircle of ABCABC we get
BPPC=APPQ.(3) BP \cdot PC = AP \cdot PQ. \qquad (3)

Combining (1), (2) and (3) yields
PQAQ=BPPCbc=acb+cabb+c1bc=(ab+c)2=(BCAB+AC)2 \frac{PQ}{AQ} = \frac{BP \cdot PC}{bc} = \frac{ac}{b+c} \cdot \frac{ab}{b+c} \cdot \frac{1}{bc} = \left(\frac{a}{b+c}\right)^2 = \left(\frac{BC}{AB+AC}\right)^2

as required.

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