On the circle , the points are given, while is not the diameter of the circle . Point moves along the long arc of circle so that the triangle is acute. Let be the feet of the altitudes from respectively. Let be the projection of point on line and be the projection of point on line .
(a) Prove that the lines and are parallel.
(b) Determine the set of midpoints of segment while along all allowable positions of point .
Solution
### Part (a): Prove that the lines and are parallel.
1. Identify the Altitudes and Projections:
- Let and be the feet of the altitudes from and respectively.
- Let be the projection of on line .
- Let be the projection of on line .
2. Use Similar Triangles:
- In , is the line segment joining the projections of and on and respectively.
- Since and are the feet of the altitudes, lies on and lies on .
3. Parallelism Argument:
- Since and are the feet of the altitudes, is perpendicular to .
- The line segment is the image of under the homothety centered at that maps to .
- Therefore, is parallel to .
Thus, we have shown that .
### Part (b): Determine the set of midpoints of segment while along all allowable positions of point .
1. **Fixed Length of :**
- By Ptolemy's theorem in cyclic quadrilateral , we have:
- Since and are fixed points on the circle, the length is fixed.
2. **Midpoint of :**
- Let be the midpoint of and be the midpoint of .
- Since is fixed, is a fixed point.
- The length is given by:
3. **Locus of Midpoint :**
- From Lemma 1 and Lemma 2, the length is fixed and given by:
- Since , the locus of is a circle centered at on the perpendicular bisector of with radius:
Combining the above lemmas, we conclude that the point moves on a circle whose center lies on the perpendicular bisector of and the radius of the circle is .