Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.7 AIME, harder Prove it Bulgaria

Problem:

The incircle of ABC\triangle ABC is tangent to the sides ACAC and BCBC, ACBCAC \neq BC, at points PP and QQ, respectively. The excircles to the sides ACAC and BCBC are tangent to the line ABAB at points MM and NN. Find ACB\text{ACB} if the points M,N,PM, N, P and QQ are concyclic.

Solution

Solution:

The perpendicular bisector of the segment ABAB and the bisector of ACB\text{ACB} meet at the midpoint DD of the arc AB\text{AB} of the circumcircle of ABC\triangle ABC which does not contain CC.

Figure 1

Next we use the standard notation for the elements of ABC\triangle ABC. Since AM=BN=CP=CQ=pcAM = BN = CP = CQ = p-c, the condition of the problem is equivalent to the equality DM=DPDM = DP. The Cosine theorem gives
DP2=DC2+CP22DCCPcosγ2DM2=DA2+AM2+2DAAMcosγ2 \begin{aligned} DP^{2} & = DC^{2} + CP^{2} - 2 DC \cdot CP \cos \frac{\gamma}{2} \\ DM^{2} & = DA^{2} + AM^{2} + 2 DA \cdot AM \cos \frac{\gamma}{2} \end{aligned}
Subtracting these equalities, we get
DCDA=2(pc)cosγ2 DC - DA = 2(p-c) \cos \frac{\gamma}{2}
On the other hand, we have DC=(a+b)DAcDC = \frac{(a+b) DA}{c} by Ptolemy's theorem. Since DA=c2cosγ2DA = \frac{c}{2 \cos \frac{\gamma}{2}}, we get DC=a+b2cosγ2DC = \frac{a+b}{2 \cos \frac{\gamma}{2}}. Now (1) implies that cos2γ2=12\cos^{2} \frac{\gamma}{2} = \frac{1}{2}, i.e. γ=90\gamma = 90^{\circ}.

Remark. The solution above shows that the points M,N,PM, N, P and QQ are concyclic if and only if AC=BCAC = BC or ACB = 90\text{ACB = 90}.

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