Maths Olympiad Prep

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, 2013

Geometry Difficulty 8.6 Shortlist Prove it Slovenia

Let AA, BB, CC and DD be points on a circle Γ\Gamma such that the lines ABAB and CDCD intersect at the point TT, where AA lies between BB and TT and DD lies between CC and TT. Let the line through DD that is parallel to the line ABAB intersect the circle Γ\Gamma again at the point EE, and let the line ETET intersect Γ\Gamma again at the point FF. Let GG denote the point of intersection of the lines CFCF and ABAB. Let XX be the midpoint of the line segment ABAB and let YY be the point that we obtain by reflecting the point TT through the point GG. Prove that the points XX, YY, CC and DD are concyclic.

Solution

The points CC, DD, EE and FF are concyclic and the lines ABAB and DEDE are parallel, so we have GTF=DEF=DCF\angle GTF = \angle DEF = \angle DCF. Hence, triangles ΔTGF\Delta TGF and ΔCGT\Delta CGT are similar and they have an equal side ratio. We notice that
GFGT=GTGC or GT2=GFGC. \frac{|GF|}{|GT|} = \frac{|GT|}{|GC|} \text{ or } |GT|^2 = |GF||GC|.
According to the power-of-a-point theorem for the point GG and the circle Γ\Gamma we also have GFGC=GAGB|GF||GC| = |GA||GB|. If we take into account that GA=TAGT|GA| = |TA| - |GT| and GB=TBGT|GB| = |TB| - |GT|, we get
GT2=(TAGT)(TBGT)=TATBGT(TA+TB)+GT2, |GT|^2 = (|TA| - |GT|)(|TB| - |GT|) = |TA||TB| - |GT|(|TA| + |TB|) + |GT|^2,
which means that TATB=GT(TA+TB)|TA||TB| = |GT|(|TA| + |TB|).
Because XX is the midpoint of the line segment ABAB, we have TX=TA+TB2|TX| = \frac{|TA|+|TB|}{2}, and from the definition of the point YY we get TY=2GT|TY| = 2|GT|. Summing it all up, we derive
TXTY=GT(TA+TB)=TATB. |TX||TY| = |GT|(|TA| + |TB|) = |TA||TB|.
The power-of-a-point theorem for the point TT and the circle Γ\Gamma now says that TATB|TA||TB| is equal to TDTC|TD||TC|. We now derive TXTY=TDTC|TX||TY| = |TD||TC|. The points XX, YY, CC and DD are thus concyclic.

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