USAMO

Geometry Difficulty 7.4 National Olympiad, round 2 Find the answer

Let ${\cal C}_1$ and ${\cal C}_2$ be concentric circles, with ${\cal C}_2$ in the interior of ${\cal C}_1$ . From a point $A$ on ${\cal C}_1$ one draws the tangent $AB$ to ${\cal C}_2$ ( $B\in {\cal C}_2$ ). Let $C$ be the second point of intersection of $AB$ and ${\cal C}_1$ , and let $D$ be the midpoint of $AB$ . A line passing through $A$ intersects ${\cal C}_2$ at $E$ and $F$ in such a way that the perpendicular bisectors of $DE$ and $CF$ intersect at a point $M$ on $AB$ . Find, with proof, the ratio $AM/MC$ .

Your answer

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

Solution

First, $AD=\frac{AB}{2}=\frac{AC}{4}$ . Because $E$ , $F$ and $B$ all lie on a circle, $AE \cdot AF=AB \cdot AB=\frac{AB}{2} \cdot 2AB=AD \cdot AC$ . Therefore, $\triangle ACF \sim \triangle AED$ , so $\angle ACF = \angle AED$ . Thus, quadrilateral $CFED$ is cyclic, and $M$ must be the center of the circumcircle of $CFED$ , which implies that $MC=\frac{CD}{2}$ . Putting it all together,
$\frac{AM}{MC}=\frac{AC-MC}{MC}=\frac{AC-\frac{CD}{2}}{\frac{CD}{2}}=\frac{AC-\frac{AC-AD}{2}}{\frac{AC-AD}{2}}=\frac{AC-\frac{3AC}{8}}{\frac{3AC}{8}}=\frac{\frac{5AC}{8}}{\frac{3AC}{8}}=\frac{5}{3}$
Borrowed from https://mks.mff.cuni.cz/kalva/usa/usoln/usol982.html

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