Maths Olympiad Prep

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Geometry Difficulty 7.4 National olympiad, round 2 Prove it

Points A,BA, B move with equal speeds along two equal circles.
Prove that the perpendicular bisector of ABAB passes through a fixed point.

Solution

1. **Define the positions of points A A and B B :**
- Point A A moves on a circle centered at O(0,0) O(0,0) with radius r r . Its coordinates are given by:
A=(rcosβ,rsinβ) A = (r \cos \beta, r \sin \beta)
where β \beta is a variable angle.
- Point B B moves on a circle centered at C(2r,0) C(-2r,0) with radius r r . Its coordinates are given by:
B=(2r+rcos(α+β),rsin(α+β)) B = (-2r + r \cos(\alpha + \beta), r \sin(\alpha + \beta))
where α \alpha is a constant angle and β \beta is the same variable angle as for point A A .

2. **Find the midpoint M M of segment AB AB :**
- The coordinates of the midpoint M M are given by the average of the coordinates of A A and B B :
M=(rcosβ+(2r+rcos(α+β))2,rsinβ+rsin(α+β)2) M = \left( \frac{r \cos \beta + (-2r + r \cos(\alpha + \beta))}{2}, \frac{r \sin \beta + r \sin(\alpha + \beta)}{2} \right)
Simplifying the coordinates of M M :
M=(rcosβ2r+rcos(α+β)2,rsinβ+rsin(α+β)2) M = \left( \frac{r \cos \beta - 2r + r \cos(\alpha + \beta)}{2}, \frac{r \sin \beta + r \sin(\alpha + \beta)}{2} \right)
M=(r(cosβ+cos(α+β))2r2,r(sinβ+sin(α+β))2) M = \left( \frac{r (\cos \beta + \cos(\alpha + \beta)) - 2r}{2}, \frac{r (\sin \beta + \sin(\alpha + \beta))}{2} \right)
M=(r(cosβ+cos(α+β))2r2,r(sinβ+sin(α+β))2) M = \left( \frac{r (\cos \beta + \cos(\alpha + \beta)) - 2r}{2}, \frac{r (\sin \beta + \sin(\alpha + \beta))}{2} \right)

3. **Determine the equation of the perpendicular bisector of AB AB :**
- The slope of AB AB is given by:
slope of AB=rsin(α+β)rsinβ2r+rcos(α+β)rcosβ \text{slope of } AB = \frac{r \sin(\alpha + \beta) - r \sin \beta}{-2r + r \cos(\alpha + \beta) - r \cos \beta}
Simplifying the slope:
slope of AB=r(sin(α+β)sinβ)r(cos(α+β)cosβ)2r \text{slope of } AB = \frac{r (\sin(\alpha + \beta) - \sin \beta)}{r (\cos(\alpha + \beta) - \cos \beta) - 2r}
slope of AB=sin(α+β)sinβcos(α+β)cosβ2 \text{slope of } AB = \frac{\sin(\alpha + \beta) - \sin \beta}{\cos(\alpha + \beta) - \cos \beta - 2}
- The slope of the perpendicular bisector is the negative reciprocal of the slope of AB AB :
slope of perpendicular bisector=cos(α+β)cosβ2sin(α+β)sinβ \text{slope of perpendicular bisector} = -\frac{\cos(\alpha + \beta) - \cos \beta - 2}{\sin(\alpha + \beta) - \sin \beta}

4. Find the fixed point through which the perpendicular bisector passes:
- The perpendicular bisector of AB AB always passes through a fixed point D D . To find this point, we need to determine the coordinates of D D such that it satisfies the equation of the perpendicular bisector for all values of β \beta .
- Given the coordinates of D D as (r,rcotα2) (-r, -r \cot \frac{\alpha}{2}) , we need to verify that this point lies on the perpendicular bisector for all β \beta .

5. Verification:
- The coordinates of D D are (r,rcotα2) (-r, -r \cot \frac{\alpha}{2}) .
- The perpendicular bisector of AB AB passes through D D if the coordinates of D D satisfy the equation of the perpendicular bisector for all β \beta .
- Since the coordinates of D D are independent of β \beta , D D is indeed a fixed point through which the perpendicular bisector of AB AB passes.

\blacksquare

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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.