Let and be two orthogonal circles, and let the center of be . Diameter of is selected so that lies strictly inside . The two circles tangent to , passing through and , touch at and . Prove that is cyclic.
[i]Proposed by Eric Chen[/i]
Let and be two orthogonal circles, and let the center of be . Diameter of is selected so that lies strictly inside . The two circles tangent to , passing through and , touch at and . Prove that is cyclic.
[i]Proposed by Eric Chen[/i]
1. Define the Problem and Setup:
Let and be two orthogonal circles with centers and respectively. Let be the center of . Consider a diameter of such that lies strictly inside . The two circles tangent to , passing through and , touch at points and . We need to prove that is cyclic.
2. Introduce Inversion:
To simplify the problem, we use inversion with respect to . Since is orthogonal to , remains unchanged under this inversion. Points and lie on , so they are preserved under inversion.
3. Analyze the Inversion:
Under inversion, the circles and (the circumcircles of and respectively) are mapped to lines and which are tangents to . Here, and are the images of and under inversion.
4. Properties of Inversion:
Since is the center of inversion, it maps to the point at infinity. Therefore, we need to show that is a straight line. This would imply that , , and are collinear.
5. Use of Polar Concept:
Note that is the polar of with respect to . To prove that lies on the polar of with respect to , we need to show that lies on the line .
6. Intersection Points and Power of a Point:
Let intersect at points and , where is closer to than . Since is orthogonal to , the power of point with respect to is given by:
This relationship confirms that lies on the polar of with respect to .
7. Conclusion:
Since lies on the polar of with respect to , and is the polar of , it follows that , , and are collinear. Therefore, is cyclic.