Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.6 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:
Let ABCABC be a triangle. Point DD lies on segment BCBC such that BAD=DAC\angle BAD = \angle DAC. Point XX lies on the opposite side of line BCBC as AA and satisfies XB=XDXB = XD and BXD=ACB\angle BXD = \angle ACB. Analogously, point YY lies on the opposite side of line BCBC as AA and satisfies YC=YDYC = YD and CYD=ABC\angle CYD = \angle ABC. Prove that lines XYXY and ADAD are perpendicular.

Solutions — 3

Solution 1

Solution:
Figure 1
Let II and IAI_{A} be the incenter and the AA-excenter of ABC\triangle ABC. The key observation is that XX is the circumcenter of BDIA\triangle BDI_{A}. To see why this is true, note that
BXD=C=2ICB=2IIAB=2DIAB. \angle BXD = \angle C = 2\angle ICB = 2\angle II_{A}B = 2\angle DI_{A}B.
Analogously, YY is the circumcenter of CDIA\triangle CDI_{A}. Hence, XYXY is the perpendicular bisector of DIADI_{A}, which is clearly perpendicular to ADAD.

Solution 2

Solution:
Figure 2
Denote ωB\omega_{B} and ωC\omega_{C} as the circumcircle of BXD\triangle BXD and CYD\triangle CYD. Also, let ADAD intersect the circumcircle of ABC\triangle ABC at MM. Since BXD=ACB=AMB\angle BXD = \angle ACB = \angle AMB, we get that MωBM \in \omega_{B}. Similarly, MωCM \in \omega_{C}. From here, there are two ways to finish.
- Note by Law of Sine that the radius of ωB\omega_{B} and ωC\omega_{C} are DB/(2sinMDB)DB/(2\sin \angle MDB) and DB/(2sinMDC)DB/(2\sin \angle MDC), so they are actually equal. Thus, if OBO_{B} and OCO_{C} are the centers of ωB\omega_{B} and ωC\omega_{C}, then XOB=YOCXO_{B} = YO_{C}. Moreover, XOBXO_{B} and YOCYO_{C} are both clearly perpendicular to BCBC, so XOBOCYXO_{B}O_{C}Y is a parallelogram, implying that XYOBOCDMXY \parallel O_{B}O_{C} \perp DM.
- Observe that
MXD=MBD=A2=90XDY \angle MXD = \angle MBD = \frac{\angle A}{2} = 90^{\circ} - \angle XDY
so XMDYXM \perp DY. Similarly, YMXDYM \perp XD, so MM is the orthocenter of DXY\triangle DXY, implying the result.

Solution 3

Solution:
Figure 3
Let DXDX intersect ACAC at PP and DYDY intersect ABAB at QQ. Observe that BCP=BXP\angle BCP = \angle BXP, so B,C,P,XB, C, P, X are concyclic. This implies that CD=CPCD = CP and that DBDC=DXDPDB \cdot DC = DX \cdot DP.
Similarly, we have BD=BQBD = BQ and that DBDC=DYDQDB \cdot DC = DY \cdot DQ. Thus, we actually have DXDP=DYDQDX \cdot DP = DY \cdot DQ, implying that X,Y,P,QX, Y, P, Q are concyclic.
Now, let II be the incenter of ABC\triangle ABC. Since BD=BQBD = BQ, it follows that BIBI is the perpendicular bisector of DQDQ, so ID=IQID = IQ. Similarly, ID=IPID = IP, so II is actually the circumcenter of DPQ\triangle DPQ.
We then finish by angle chasing:
XDI=180PDI=90+DQP=90+DXY \angle XDI = 180^{\circ} - \angle PDI = 90^{\circ} + \angle DQP = 90^{\circ} + \angle DXY
implying the result.

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