Skip to main content
OlympiadHQ

Browse · MathNet

Print

Balkan Mathematical Olympiad

geometry

Problem

Two circles and intersect at points , . A line is tangent to , at and , respectively. The lines passing through and and perpendicular to intersect at and respectively. Prove that is a parallelogram.
Solution
Let be the second intersection point of with , the second intersection of with , the intersection of and , and the intersection of and . We will show that , , , all lie on a line perpendicular to both and .

Since and are cyclic quadrilaterals, we have By the power of a point theorem, is cyclic and . But , hence , and are collinear. Similarly, we show that , , are collinear. Indeed, since and are cyclic quadrilaterals, we have Therefore, is cyclic and . Since also , it follows that , , are collinear. Hence , , , are collinear and , . Since , is a parallelogram.

Techniques

TangentsRadical axis theoremCyclic quadrilateralsAngle chasing