The incircle of acute-angled scalene triangle has centre and meets sides , , and at , , and , respectively. The line through perpendicular to meets again at . Line meets again at . The circumcircles of triangles and meet again at . Prove that lines and meet on the external bisector of angle . (India) Common remarks. Throughout the solution, denotes the directed angle between lines and , measured modulo .
Solution
Step 1. The external bisector of is the line through perpendicular to . Let meet this line at and let meet at . Let be the midpoint of , which lies on and is the pole of line with respect to . Since , the points , , and are concyclic. As , the line is the external bisector of , so meets again at the point symmetric to with respect to at . Let cross again at . Opposite sides of any quadrilateral inscribed in the circle meet on the polar line of the intersection of the diagonals with respect to . Since lies on the polar line of with respect to , the line must pass through . Thus it suffices to prove that the points , and are collinear. ! Step 2. Let be the circumcircle of . Notice that so lies on . Let meet again at . It will now suffice to prove that , and are collinear. Notice that . Note and so and hence is parallel to the line . Since , the line crosses at its midpoint . Step 3. Let and be the midpoints of and , respectively. Since , the point lies on the radical axis of and ; the same holds for . Therefore, this radical axis is , and it passes through . Thus , so , and are concyclic. This shows , whence the points , and are collinear, as desired. ! Comment. Here is a longer alternative proof in step 1 that , and are collinear, using a circular inversion instead of the fact that opposite sides of a quadrilateral inscribed in a circle meet on the polar line with respect to of the intersection of the diagonals. Let be the foot of the altitude from to the line . Observe that are concyclic (opposite right angles) so hence are concyclic. We have since . Inverting the circle in circle , points and are fixed and is taken to so we find that , and are collinear.