Maths Olympiad Prep

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, 2013

Geometry Difficulty 8.4 Shortlist Prove it Saudi Arabia

ABCABC is a triangle, HH its orthocenter, II its incenter, OO its circumcenter and ω\omega its circumcircle. Line CICI intersects circle ω\omega at point DD different from CC. Assume that AB=IDAB = ID and AH=OHAH = OH. Find the angles of triangle ABCABC.

Solution

We already know that DA=DB=DIDA = DB = DI. Because DI=ABDI = AB, triangle ADBADB is equilateral. But ACB+BDA=180\angle ACB + \angle BDA = 180^\circ, we deduce that ACB=120\angle ACB = 120^\circ.

Because BOA=2BDA=120\angle BOA = 2 \angle BDA = 120^\circ, we deduce that OAB=30\angle OAB = 30^\circ. On the other hand, we have CAH=90CBABAC=30\angle CAH = 90^\circ - \angle CBA - \angle BAC = 30^\circ. By applying cosine law in the triangle AOHAOH we obtain
OH2=AH2+R22RAHcos(BAC+60), OH^2 = AH^2 + R^2 - 2R \cdot AH \cos(\angle BAC + 60^\circ),
where RR is the circumradius of triangle ABCABC. This is equivalent to
2AHcos(BAC+60)=R. 2AH \cos(\angle BAC + 60^\circ) = R.
Figure 1
Because HCHC is perpendicular to ABAB and BCBC is perpendicular to AHAH, we have AHC=CBA\angle AHC = \angle CBA. On the other hand, we have HCA=180AHC30=90+BAC\angle HCA = 180^\circ - \angle AHC - 30^\circ = 90^\circ + \angle BAC. We deduce, by applying sine law to the triangle ACHACH that
AHsin(90+BAC)=ACsinCBA=2R. \frac{AH}{\sin(90^\circ + \angle BAC)} = \frac{AC}{\sin \angle CBA} = 2R.
Therefore, AH=2RcosBACAH = 2R \cos \angle BAC. By plugging this into our previous relation we obtain
2cosBACcos(BAC+60)=12. 2 \cos \angle BAC \cdot \cos(\angle BAC + 60^\circ) = \frac{1}{2}.
This is equivalent to
cos(2BAC+60)+cos60=12, \cos(2\angle BAC + 60^\circ) + \cos 60^\circ = \frac{1}{2},
and therefore, BAC=15\angle BAC = 15^\circ. Thus

\angle BAC = 15^\circ, \quad \angle CBA = 45^\circ, \quad \text{and} \quad \angle ACB = 120^\circ.

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