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Printsmc
geometry senior
Problem
Square lies in the first quadrant. Points and lie on lines , and , respectively. What is the sum of the coordinates of the center of the square ?
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
Solution
Construct the midpoints and and triangle as in the diagram, where is the center of square . Also construct points and as in the diagram so that and . Observe that while being a square implies that . Furthermore, , so is 3 times bigger than . Therefore, . In other words, the longer leg is 3 times the shorter leg in any triangle similar to . Let be the foot of the perpendicular from to , and let . Triangles and , being similar to , also have legs in a 1:3 ratio, therefore, and , so . It follows that and , so the coordinates of are and so our answer is .
Final answer
C