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Iranian Mathematical Olympiad

Iran geometry

Problem

Let be a variable point on side of triangle . The incenters of triangles , and are , and , respectively. Points and are the second intersection points of circumcircles of triangles and with the circumcircle of triangle , respectively. Prove that as varies on side , line passes through a fixed point in the plane.
Solution
First, note that the circumcircles of triangles and are perpendicular, because Under an inversion with center and power and then a reflection with respect to the bisector of , pairs and are mapped to each other. Let and be the image of and under this transformation, respectively. Circumcircles of and (which pass through the center of inversion) are mapped to lines and . It is obvious that in this transformation, the circumcircle of triangle and the line are mapped to each other, so and are on the line . Now, the assertion becomes equivalent to proving that the circumcircle of passes through some constant point other than as varies.

Since inversion and reflection both preserve the angles, we have . If is the foot of the perpendicular line from to , then the power of with respect to this circle is which is constant as varies. Therefore, the power of with respect to the circumcircle of is constant. Hence lies on the radical axis of these circles and another point on the line is the common point of all these circles.

Techniques

InversionRadical axis theoremCoaxal circlesAngle chasingTriangle centers: centroid, incenter, circumcenter, orthocenter, Euler line, nine-point circle