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Rioplatense Mathematical Olympiad

Geometry Difficulty 5.6 AIME, harder Prove it Argentina

Let II be the incenter of triangle ABCABC. The incircle of ABCABC is tangent to side BCBC at DD. Let PP and QQ be points on rays IBIB and ICIC respectively such that ∠IAP=∠CAD\angle IAP = \angle CAD and ∠IAQ=∠BAD\angle IAQ = \angle BAD. Prove that AP=AQAP = AQ.

Solution

Let's assume the incircle is tangent to ABAB at FF, then we have that ∠FAD=∠IAQ\angle FAD = \angle IAQ and ∠AFD=180∘−∠B2=∠AIQ\angle AFD = \frac{180^\circ - \angle B}{2} = \angle AIQ where the first equality is from the statement and the other are well-known identities. It follows that △AFD\triangle AFD and △AIQ\triangle AIQ are similar to each other and hence △ADQ\triangle ADQ and △AFI\triangle AFI are also similar to each other. In particular ∠ADQ=∠AFI=90∘\angle ADQ = \angle AFI = 90^\circ and moreover, by a similar argument, we get the analogous equality ∠ADP=90∘\angle ADP = 90^\circ. Finally, we observe that ∠PAD=∠CAI=∠BAI=∠QAD\angle PAD = \angle CAI = \angle BAI = \angle QAD and hence ADAD is the angle bisector and also the altitude that corresponds to vertex AA in triangle △PAQ\triangle PAQ. Thus AP=AQAP = AQ.

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