GeometryDifficulty 9.1Prove itBaltic Way shortlist · Baltic Way
Let M be a subset of a plane sufficing following properties: 1) There is no single line k, such that M⊂k. 2) For any parallelogram ABCD if A,B,C∈M, then D∈M. 3) If A,B∈M, then ∣AB∣>1.
Prove, that there are two families of parallel lines, such that M is a set consisting of all intersection points of lines from the first family with lines from the second family.
This one wants a proof. Work it on paper, read the official solution, then mark
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Official solution
At the beginning we can see that property 3) implies that in any bounded subset of a plane there is only a finite number of points from M. (*)
Next, we can see that if for some points A,B∈M we define by ϕ a translation by vector AB, then for any point C∈M we also have ϕ(C)∈M. (**)
Indeed: thanks to property 1) we know that there is a point P∈M that does not belong to line AB. Therefore, from 2) we can imply that there is a point R∈M, such that ABRP is a parallelogram, and therefore PR=AB. Now it is sufficient to see that point C does not belong to line AB or does not belong to line PR, so ϕ(C)∈M by property 2), as the fourth vertex of parallelogram BACϕ(C) or RPCϕ(C), which concludes the proof of (**). It is worth mentioning that we can say the same about ϕ−1 (translation by vector BA). It shows that ϕ is a one-to-one mapping of set M on itself.
We will show now that we can choose such a parallelogram (we will call it “basic”) with vertices in M, which does not contain any other points from M (except vertices). Indeed: thanks to (*) we can pick line segment AB with ends in M, which won't contain any other points from M. Thanks to properties 1) and 2) we know that we can find parallelogram ABCD with vertices in M. If ABCD is not basic, by (*), from the finitely many points from M contained inside ABCD we can pick point E that lies closest to the line AB. Then, as we know from 2) we can get parallelogram ABEF with vertices in M, which either is basic or it contains point Q∈M belonging to ABEF but not on segment EF (then translation of Q by vector AB belongs to ABCD and lies closer to line AB than E, a contradiction) or it contains point Q∈M on segment EF (in this case the translation of A by vector ±EQ is a point of M lying inside segment AB, a contradiction).
To sum things up, we have to see that if we get basic parallelogram ABCD with vertices in M, and define ϕ as a translation by vector AB, and define ψ as a translation by vector AD, then we can define a set Z={ϕk∘ψl(A):k,l∈Z}, which now is easy to see, is equal to M. It is obvious that Z=M fulfills the thesis.
Source: MathNet,
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