Let be an acute triangle. Variable points and are on sides and respectively such that . As and vary prove that the circumcircle of passes through a fixed point other than .
Solutions — 2
Solution 1
1
Let be the orthocenter of and be the feet of the perpendiculars from to their opposite sides of . Also let be the intersection point of lines and . From the power of a point, we have
and
Adding (1) and (2) we have:
Combining (3) with the problem statement we have:
!
Where the last equality follows from . Now since and , we get that triangles . From this similarity we get
meaning points are concyclic.
Since both pairs and satisfy the problem condition, we must have this fixed point we are looking for is the second intersection of the circumcircles around and . Let this point be . We now prove that is fixed on the circumcircle of (which would imply is fixed).
From the concyclicity we have
and from here we get . This similarity gives us
Now combining (4) and (5) we get which is a fixed quantity. Since points , the circumcircle of , and ratio are fixed, this implies that point is fixed.
Solution 2
1. Given Condition and Setup:
We are given an acute triangle with variable points and on sides and respectively such that:
We need to prove that the circumcircle of passes through a fixed point other than .
2. Intersection of Circles:
Consider the circumcircles of and . Let these circles intersect at some point . This point is crucial as it helps in defining the positions of and .
3. **Inversion about Point :**
Perform an inversion about point with an arbitrary radius. Under this inversion, points , , , and map to points , , , and respectively. The inversion transforms the circumcircles of and into lines passing through , the image of .
4. Cyclic Quadrilateral:
The inversion transforms the cyclic quadrilateral into another cyclic quadrilateral . Here, , , and are fixed points, while is the image of the intersection point and is variable.
5. Intersection Points:
The points and are defined as:
We need to show that the line passes through a fixed point.
6. **Pole of Line :**
Let be the pole of the line with respect to the circumcircle of . The pole is a fixed point because it depends only on the fixed points , , and .
7. **Line Passing Through :**
It is a well-known result in projective geometry that the line passes through the pole of the line with respect to the circumcircle of . Therefore, is the fixed point through which the line always passes.
8. Conclusion:
Since the line always passes through the fixed point , the original circumcircle of must pass through the fixed point corresponding to under the inversion.