Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 6.5 National olympiad Prove it

Let ABC\triangle A B C be a triangle with side lengths that are positive integers and pairwise relatively prime. The tangent at AA to the circumcircle intersects the line BCB C at DD. Prove that BD|B D| is not an integer.
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Solution

There are two possible configurations. Without loss of generality, assume that BB lies between DD and CC. Let a=BC,b=CA,c=AB,x=BDa=|B C|, b=|C A|, c=|A B|, x=|B D|, and y=ADy=|A D|. By the tangent-secant angle theorem, BAD=ACB=ACD\angle B A D=\angle A C B=\angle A C D, so ABDCAD(AA)\triangle A B D \sim \triangle C A D(\mathrm{AA}), hence BDAD=ABCA=ADCD\frac{|B D|}{|A D|}=\frac{|A B|}{|C A|}=\frac{|A D|}{|C D|}, or xy=cb=ya+x\frac{x}{y}=\frac{c}{b}=\frac{y}{a+x}. From this, we get yc=bxy c=b x and ac+xc=bya c+x c=b y, so also byc=b2xb y c=b^{2} x and ac2+xc2=byca c^{2}+x c^{2}=b y c. Combining these gives b2x=ac2+xc2b^{2} x=a c^{2}+x c^{2}, or x(b2c2)=ac2x\left(b^{2}-c^{2}\right)=a c^{2}.
Now assume for the sake of contradiction that xx is an integer. Then b2c2b^{2}-c^{2} is a divisor of ac2a c^{2}. But we know gcd(b,c)=1\operatorname{gcd}(b, c)=1, so also gcd(b2c2,c)=gcd(b2,c)=1\operatorname{gcd}\left(b^{2}-c^{2}, c\right)=\operatorname{gcd}\left(b^{2}, c\right)=1. Therefore, b2c2b^{2}-c^{2} must be a divisor of aa. This implies b2c2ab^{2}-c^{2} \leq a. Note that b2c2>0b^{2}-c^{2}>0 since x(b2c2)=ac2x\left(b^{2}-c^{2}\right)=a c^{2}; thus, bc>0b-c>0 as well. Therefore, b2c2=(bc)(b+c)1(b+c)b^{2}-c^{2}=(b-c)(b+c) \geq 1 \cdot(b+c) because bb and cc are positive integers. Hence, ab+ca \geq b+c, which contradicts the triangle inequality. Therefore, x=BDx=|B D| cannot be an integer.

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Source: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.