Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.2 AIME, harder Prove it Saudi Arabia

Let ABCABC be an arbitrary triangle. A circle passes through BB and CC and intersects the lines ABAB and ACAC in DD and EE, respectively. The projections of the points BB and EE on CDCD are denoted by BB' and EE', respectively. The projections of the points DD and CC on BEBE are denoted by DD' and CC', respectively.

Prove that the points BB', DD', EE' and CC' lie on the same circle.

Solutions — 2

Solution 1

Let II be the intersection point of the lines BEBE and CDCD. The quadrilaterals BDBDBD'B'D and CECECE'C'E are cyclic, so BDB=BDI\overline{BDB'} = \overline{B'D'I} and CEC=IEC\overline{CEC'} = \overline{IE'C'}. Since BDECBDEC is also cyclic, BDB=CEC\overline{BDB'} = \overline{CEC'}. It follows that BDI=IEC\overline{B'D'I} = \overline{IE'C'}, so BDECB'D'E'C' is a cyclic quadrilateral.

Solution 2

Using the power of a point theorem, one has:
IBID=IDIB IB' \cdot ID = ID' \cdot IB
ICIE=IEIC IC' \cdot IE = IE' \cdot IC
IEIB=IDIC IE \cdot IB = ID \cdot IC
From these one easily obtains
IBIE=IDIC IB' \cdot IE' = ID' \cdot IC'
which proves that the quadrilateral BDECB'D'E'C' is cyclic, using the reciprocal of the power of a point theorem.

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