Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /31 of 52

Geometry Difficulty 6.1 National olympiad Prove it Belarus

1. The two lines with slopes 22 and 1/21/2 pass through an arbitrary point TT on the axis OyOy and intersect the hyperbola y=1/xy = 1/x at four points.

a) Prove that these four points lie on a circle.

b) The point TT runs through the entire yy-axis. Find the locus of the centers of such circles.

Solution

b) the required locus is the line y=1.6xy = -1.6x.

Let aa be the ordinate of the point TT. Then the lines from the problem condition have equations ya2x=0y - a - 2x = 0 and ya12x=0y - a - \frac{1}{2}x = 0. The union of these lines is defined by (ya2x)(ya12x)=0(y - a - 2x)(y - a - \frac{1}{2}x) = 0 which is equivalent to (ya)2+x2+54ax54xy=0(y - a)^2 + x^2 + \frac{5}{4}a x - \frac{5}{4}x y = 0.

Since each point at which these lines intersect hyperbola satisfies xy=1x y = 1, the latter equation for them can be written as x2+54ax+(ya)254=0x^2 + \frac{5}{4}a x + (y - a)^2 - \frac{5}{4} = 0. This equation defines the circle
(x+58a)2+(ya)2=54+2564a2, (x + \frac{5}{8}a)^2 + (y - a)^2 = \frac{5}{4} + \frac{25}{64}a^2,
centered at (58a;a)(-\frac{5}{8}a; a). Therefore, all four points of intersection lie on this circle.

Clearly, for any point TT on the yy-axis these lines intersect the hyperbola at exactly four points. Hence the required locus is defined by {(1.6a;a):aR}\{(-1.6a; a) : a \in \mathbb{R}\}. It is easy to see that the locus is the line y=1.6xy = -1.6x.

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.