Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 5.8 AIME, harder Prove it

10 - Consider a hexagon ABCDEFA B C D E F inscribed in a circle, such that AB=BC=a,CD=DE=b,EF=FA=cA B=B C=a, C D=D E=b, E F=F A=c. Show that the area of triangle BDFB D F is half the area of the hexagon.

Solution

Let α,β,γ\alpha, \beta, \gamma be the angles OAB^,OCD^\widehat{O A B}, \widehat{O C D}, and OEF^\widehat{O E F}. It is easy to see that α+β+γ=180\alpha+\beta+\gamma=180^{\circ}.

We will use the following result: if O,X,Y,ZO, X, Y, Z are four points such that OX=OY=OZO X=O Y=O Z and XOY^+YOZ^=180\widehat{X O Y}+\widehat{Y O Z}=180^{\circ}, then the triangles XOYX O Y and YOZY O Z have the same area.

!

Indeed, by taking the sides [OX][O X] and [OZ][O Z] as bases, we observe that these triangles have bases of the same length and their heights from YY coincide.

We deduce that the areas of OAB,OCDO A B, O C D, and OEFO E F are respectively equal to those of ODF,OFBO D F, O F B, and OBDO B D. By adding these areas, we obtain that half the area of the hexagon is equal to the area of BDFB D F.

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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.