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Algebra Difficulty 4.5 AIME Prove it

(Titu Andreescu) Let ABCDABCD be a quadrilateral circumscribed about a circle, whose interior and exterior angles are at least 60 degrees. Prove that
13AB3AD3BC3CD33AB3AD3.\frac {1}{3}|AB^3 - AD^3| \le |BC^3 - CD^3| \le 3|AB^3 - AD^3|.
When does equality hold?

Solution

It suffices to show that BC3CD33AB3AD3,|BC^3-CD^3| \leq 3|AB^3-AD^3|, because the other side of the inequality follows by symmetry. By Pitot's Theorem, we have ABAD=BCCDAB-AD=BC-CD. WLOG, let ABADAB \geq AD. Then we have that BCCDBC \geq CD, so we must show BC3CD33(AB3AD3)BC^3-CD^3 \leq 3(AB^3-AD^3). If AB=ADAB=AD, we are done. Therefore, we will assume for the rest of the proof that AB>ADAB>AD, BC>CDBC>CD.
Then we would like to show that BC2+BCCD+CD23(AB2+ABAD+AD2).BC^2+BC\cdot CD+CD^2 \leq 3(AB^2+AB\cdot AD+AD^2).
By the Law of Cosines, we have that BD2=BC2+k1(BCCD)+CD2=AB2+k2(ABAD)+AD2,BD^2=BC^2+k_1(BC\cdot CD)+CD^2=AB^2+k_2(AB\cdot AD)+AD^2, where 1k1,k21-1 \leq k_1, k_2 \leq 1 (this is because 60BAD,BCD12060^{\circ} \leq \angle BAD,\angle BCD \leq 120^{\circ}). Therefore, 3(BC2BCCD+CD2)3(BC2+k1(BCCD)+CD2)=3(AB2+k2(ABAD)+AD2)3(AB2+ABAD+AD2).3(BC^2-BC\cdot CD+CD^2) \leq 3(BC^2+k_1(BC\cdot CD)+CD^2)=3(AB^2+k_2(AB\cdot AD)+AD^2)\leq 3(AB^2+AB\cdot AD+AD^2). Then we wish to show that 3(BC2BCCD+CD2)(BC2+BCCD+CD2)02(BCCD)20,3(BC^2-BC\cdot CD+CD^2)-(BC^2+BC\cdot CD+CD^2) \geq 0 \rightarrow 2(BC-CD)^2 \geq 0, and we are done. \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.