Let be a triangle with circumcircle and incentre . Let the line passing through and perpendicular to intersect the segment and the not containing of at points and , respectively. Let the line passing through and parallel to intersect at , and let the line passing through and parallel to intersect at . Let and be the midpoints of and , respectively. Prove that if the points , and are collinear, then the points , and are also collinear.
Solution
We start with some general observations. Set . Then obviously . Since , we obtain . Therefore , which implies that the points , and lie on a common circle (see Figure 1). Assume now that the points , and are collinear. We prove that . Let the line intersect at . Since the lines , and are parallel, we get
implying . Moreover, . This implies that the quadrilateral is cyclic, and since is the angle bisector of , we infer that . Thus in the isosceles triangle , the point is the midpoint of the base . This gives , i.e., . !
Figure 1 Let be the midpoint of the segment . Let moreover be the intersection point of the lines and , and set . Since and , we obtain
which implies that . Therefore, since , the point is the midpoint of , i.e., .
To complete our solution, it remains to show that the intersection point of the lines and coincide with the midpoint of the segment . But since is the midpoint of the segment , it suffices to show that the lines and are parallel.
Since the quadrilateral is cyclic, . This implies that is the external angle bisector of the angle , which yields . Therefore , which gives . Hence , so .
On the other hand, , which implies that the lines and are parallel. This completes the solution.