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Geometry Difficulty 5.4 AIME, harder Find the answer

Let ABCA B C be an equilateral triangle with side length 1. Points D,E,FD, E, F lie inside triangle ABCA B C such that A,E,FA, E, F are collinear, B,F,DB, F, D are collinear, C,D,EC, D, E are collinear, and triangle DEFD E F is equilateral. Suppose that there exists a unique equilateral triangle XYZX Y Z with XX on side BC,Y\overline{B C}, Y on side AB\overline{A B}, and ZZ on side AC\overline{A C} such that DD lies on side XZ,E\overline{X Z}, E lies on side YZ\overline{Y Z}, and FF lies on side XY\overline{X Y}. Compute AZA Z.

A number or a short expression. Fractions can be typed as 3/2, and spacing doesn't matter.

Solution

First, note that point XX can be constructed from intersection of (DOF)\odot(D O F) and side BC\overline{B C}. Thus, if there is a unique equilateral triangle, then we must have that (DOF)\odot(D O F) is tangent to BC\overline{B C}. Furthermore, (DOF)\odot(D O F) is tangent to DED E, so by equal tangents, we have CD=CXC D=C X. We now compute the answer. Let x=AZ=CX=CD=BFx=A Z=C X=C D=B F. Then, by power of point, BFBD=BX2BD=(1x)2xB F \cdot B D=B X^{2} \Longrightarrow B D=\frac{(1-x)^{2}}{x} Thus, by law of cosine on BDC\triangle B D C, we have that x2+((1x)2x)2+x(1x)2x=1x2+(1x)4x2+(1x)2=1(1x)4x2=2x(1x)1xx=23x=11+23\begin{aligned} x^{2}+\left(\frac{(1-x)^{2}}{x}\right)^{2}+x \cdot \frac{(1-x)^{2}}{x} & =1 \\ x^{2}+\frac{(1-x)^{4}}{x^{2}}+(1-x)^{2} & =1 \\ \frac{(1-x)^{4}}{x^{2}} & =2x(1-x) \\ \frac{1-x}{x} & =\sqrt[3]{2} \\ x & =\frac{1}{1+\sqrt[3]{2}} \end{aligned}

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Source: Omni-MATH, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.