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Geometry Difficulty 7.2 National Olympiad, round 2 Prove it Canada

Problem:

Initially, three non-collinear points, AA, BB, and CC, are marked on the plane. You have a pencil and a double-edged ruler of width 1. Using them, you may perform the following operations:
- Mark an arbitrary point in the plane.
- Mark an arbitrary point on an already drawn line.
- If two points P1P_1 and P2P_2 are marked, draw the line connecting P1P_1 and P2P_2.
- If two non-parallel lines 1\ell_1 and 2\ell_2 are drawn, mark the intersection of 1\ell_1 and 2\ell_2.
- If a line \ell is drawn, draw a line parallel to \ell that is at distance 1 away from \ell (note that two such lines may be drawn).

Prove that it is possible to mark the orthocenter of ABCA B C using these operations.

Solutions — 2

Solution 1

Solution:

Claim 1. It is possible to draw internal/external angle bisectors.
Proof. Let AA, BB, CC be marked. To bisect ABC\angle A B C, draw the parallel line to ABA B unit 1 away from it on the opposite side as CC, and draw the parallel line to BCB C unit 1 away from it on the opposite side as AA. Let these lines intersect at DD. Then BDB D is the internal angle bisector of ABC\angle A B C. We can construct external angle bisectors similarly by drawing the line on the same side as AA for the second line instead.

Corollary 2. It is possible to mark the incenters and excenters of a triangle ABCA B C.
Proof. Draw in the internal/external bisectors of all three angles and intersect them.

Claim 3. It is possible to mark the midpoint of any segment ABA B.
Proof. Let BB and CC be marked. Draw an arbitrary point AA not on line BCB C. Draw a line parallel to BCB C unit 1 away from it on the opposite side as AA, and let this line intersect ABA B at DD and ACA C at EE. Let BEB E and CDC D intersect at FF, and let AFA F intersect BCB C at MM. Then by Ceva's Theorem, MM is the midpoint of BCB C.

Corollary 4. It is possible to mark the centroid of ABCA B C.
Proof. Draw the midpoint DD of BCB C and the midpoint EE of ACA C, and intersect ADA D with BEB E.

Claim 5. It is possible to draw the perpendicular bisector of any segment BCB C.
Proof. Let BB and CC be marked. Draw an arbitrary point AA not on line BCB C. Construct the incenter II and AA-excenter IAI_A of ABCA B C. Draw the midpoint MM of BCB C and midpoint NN of IIAI I_A. By the incenter-excenter lemma, NN is the midpoint of the arc B C\text{arc B C} not containing AA, so MNM N is the perpendicular bisector of BCB C.

Corollary 6. It is possible to mark the circumcenter of ABCA B C.
Proof. Draw and intersect the perpendicular bisectors of BCB C and ACA C.

Claim 7. Given two marked points AA and BB, it is possible to mark the point CC such that BC=12AB\overrightarrow{B C}=\frac{1}{2} \overrightarrow{A B}.
Proof. Draw an arbitrary point DD not on line ABA B. Draw the midpoint MM of ADA D. Draw the midpoint M1M_1 of BDB D and the midpoint M2M_2 of MDM D, and let M1M2M_1 M_2 intersect ABA B at CC. Then M1M2BMM_1 M_2 \parallel B M and MM2=12MD=12AMM M_2=\frac{1}{2} M D=\frac{1}{2} A M, so BC=12ABB C=\frac{1}{2} A B.

Claim 8. Given two marked points AA and BB and any positive real number kk such that 2kZ2 k \in \mathbb{Z}, it is possible to mark the point CC such that BC=kAB\overrightarrow{B C}=k \overrightarrow{A B}.
Proof. Note that by applying Claim 7 and marking the midpoint of ABA B, we can translate both AA and BB by 12AB\frac{1}{2} \overrightarrow{A B}. The claim now follows by applying this operation repeatedly.

To finish, take the given triangle ABCA B C and mark its circumcenter OO and centroid GG. Note that its orthocenter HH satisfies that GH=2OG\overrightarrow{G H}=2 \overrightarrow{O G}, so applying Claim 8 to k=2k=2 now finishes the problem.

Solution 2

Solution:

Start with Claims 1-3 of solution 1, allowing us to draw internal/external angle bisectors, in/excentres, and midpoints. We add one more claim.

Claim 9. Given a point PP and a line 1\ell_1, it is possible to draw a line through PP parallel to 1\ell_1.
Proof. Draw the line 2\ell_2 on the opposite side of 1\ell_1 to PP, a distance 1 away. Draw arbitrary lines PABP A B and PCDP C D with A,C1A, C \in \ell_1, B,D2B, D \in \ell_2. Let EE be the midpoint of ACA C, let F=PE2F=P E \cap \ell_2, and let Q=BEFCQ=B E \cap F C.

Since QECQBF\triangle Q E C \sim \triangle Q B F and PAEPBF\triangle P A E \sim \triangle P B F, we have
QEQB=ECBF=AEBF=PAPB \frac{Q E}{Q B}=\frac{E C}{B F}=\frac{A E}{B F}=\frac{P A}{P B}
so BAEBPQ\triangle B A E \sim \triangle B P Q. In particular, PQP Q is parallel to AEA E, as desired.

In triangle ABC\triangle A B C, draw the incentre II and AA-excentre IAI_A. Draw the midpoints DD of BCB C and MM of IIAI I_A. By the incentre-excentre lemma, MM is on the perpendicular bisector of BCB C, so MDM D is perpendicular to BCB C. Finally, using Claim 9, we can draw a line through AA that is perpendicular to BCB C. Repeat this for BB and ACA C, and their intersection is the orthocentre of ABC\triangle A B C, as required.

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