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Austria 2014

Austria 2014 geometry

Problem

For a point in the interior of a triangle , let be the intersection of with , the intersection of with and the intersection of with . Furthermore, let and be the intersections of the parallel to through with the sides and , respectively. Likewise, let and be the intersections of the parallel to through with the sides and , respectively. In a given triangle , determine all points for which the triangles , and have the same area.

problem


problem
Solution
In the following, let denote the area of the triangle . Since we are only dealing with ratios of areas and parallels to the sides of the triangle, we can assume without loss of generality that is equilateral for the following argument. (If it is not, an affine transformation will yield this case without changing the ratios involved.) Let be the median of through and assume without loss of generality that lies to the left of , i.e. in the interior of . We then have With the angle equality , this implies

Equality of the areas of these two triangles therefore implies that lies on the median through . The second equality implies . Since triangles and are similar (corresponding sides are parallel), triangle is also equilateral and is perpendicular to . It therefore follows that is perpendicular to and therefore a median in . It follows that there is only one point with the required properties, namely the centroid of .
Final answer
the centroid of triangle ABC

Techniques

Triangle centers: centroid, incenter, circumcenter, orthocenter, Euler line, nine-point circleAngle chasingConstructions and loci