4. On the side of the right-angled triangle with as the right angle, take a point between points and . On the segment , there is another point different from point . Draw a line through , intersecting the circumcircle of triangle at point . Draw a circle through , , and , and the intersection point of this circle with circle other than is . Find the position of point that makes the segment the shortest.
Problem 880
Official solution
We denote the smallest angle required to rotate line counterclockwise to be parallel to line as .
Lemma: Four non-collinear points are concyclic if and only if (Figure 1). This can be proven by the properties of angles subtended by the same arc in a circle.
Construct (Figure 2), and extend to intersect circle at . We will prove that for every point satisfying the problem's conditions, coincides with . There are two possible cases.
(1) Point and do not coincide. Since points , and are all on circle , we have . Since , then . This implies that , meaning points are concyclic, thus .
(2) Point and coincide. In a homothety centered at point , point is moved to point , and line is transformed into itself, while line is transformed into line (since ). This means point is moved to point . Therefore, circle is transformed into the circumcircle of triangle . Since the center of homothety is point , these circles have no other common points, i.e., .
Clearly, the point is the projection of point onto line , and this projection lies within segment (since is acute, and point does not coincide with point , because is an obtuse angle).