Points lie fixed on a circle , in that order, and such that . Let be a variable point on the of not containing or . Line meets line at , while line meets line at . Prove there exists a fixed point , independent of , such that the power of to the circumcircle of is constant.
Solution
For brevity, we let denote line for . We first give an explicit description of the fixed point . Let and be points on such that and . The problem conditions imply that lies between and while lies between and . Then we let
This point exists because are the vertices of a convex quadrilateral. Remark (How to identify the fixed point). If we drop the condition that lies on the arc, then the choice above is motivated by choosing . Essentially, when one chooses , the point approaches an infinity point. So in this degenerate case, the only points whose power is finite to are bounded are those on line . The same logic shows that must lie on line . Therefore, if the problem is going to work, the fixed point must be exactly .
【First approach by Vincent Huang. We need the following claim: Claim - Suppose distinct lines and meet at . Then for any point
Construct the points and , which do not depend on . Claim - Quadrilaterals and are cyclic. !
Now, for the particular we choose, we have