Let be a non-empty subset of a plane. We say that the point can be seen from if every point from the line segment belongs to . Further, the set can be seen from if every point of can be seen from . Suppose that can be seen from , and where is a triangle. Prove that can also be seen from any other point of the triangle .
Problem 1503
Official solution
1. Restate the problem in terms of line segments and visibility:
- We need to show that if a set can be seen from points , , and of a triangle , then can be seen from any point within the triangle .
2. **Consider a point on the line segment :**
- We will first show that if can be seen from and , then it can be seen from any point on .
3. **Choose an arbitrary point in :**
- Since can be seen from , every point on the line segment is in .
- Similarly, since can be seen from , every point on the line segment is in .
4. **Consider any point on the line segment :**
- Since is on and , .
- Now consider the line segment . Since can be seen from , every point on is in .
5. **Show that can be seen from :**
- Let be any point on . We need to show that every point on the line segment is in .
- Since is on , it can be expressed as a convex combination of and , i.e., for some .
6. Use the convex combination property:
- Consider any point on the line segment . can be expressed as for some .
- Substituting into the expression for , we get:
- Since , , and are all points from which can be seen, and is convex, must also be in .
7. **Generalize to any point within the triangle :**
- By the same argument, any point on the line segment can see because can be seen from and .
- Therefore, any point within the triangle can see because it can be expressed as a convex combination of points from which can be seen.