Let and be four points in the plane such that is an equilateral triangle and . We assume that the only given lengths , and allow us to uniquely determine the length .
Prove that lies on the circumcircle of .
Solution
Let and be the circles centered at and passing through , , and respectively. Let be the symmetric point of with respect to . Note that is the only point on , other than itself, such that .
Now, let be the rotation centered at with an angle of in the clockwise direction. Without loss of generality, we assume that .
Then, for any point on , we associate the point . The triangle is equilateral, and the hypothesis of the problem states that for any , the point can only belong to if it is equal to or .
As describes , the point describes the circle , centered at and with radius . This circle cannot contain both points and , since then its center would lie on the perpendicular bisector of , which is not the case for .
Since already contains , it cannot contain any other point of . Given that , we know that is located inside , which is therefore internally tangent to at the point .
Since , it follows that the points , and are collinear in that order. This implies that , or equivalently, . The Ptolemy's theorem then indicates that the points , and are concyclic, which concludes the proof.
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