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jmc

geometry senior

Problem

Point lies on the diagonal of square with . Let and be the circumcenters of triangles and respectively. Given that and , then , where and are positive integers. Find .
Solution
Denote the midpoint of be and the midpoint of be . Because they are the circumcenters, both Os lie on the perpendicular bisectors of and and these bisectors go through and . It is given that . Because and are radii of the same circle, the have the same length. This is also true of and . Because , . Thus, and are isosceles right triangles. Using the given information above and symmetry, . Because ABP and ADP share one side, have one side with the same length, and one equal angle, they are congruent by SAS. This is also true for triangle CPB and CPD. Because angles APB and APD are equal and they sum to 120 degrees, they are each 60 degrees. Likewise, both angles CPB and CPD have measures of 120 degrees. Because the interior angles of a triangle add to 180 degrees, angle ABP has measure 75 degrees and angle PDC has measure 15 degrees. Subtracting, it is found that both angles and have measures of 30 degrees. Thus, both triangles and are 30-60-90 right triangles. Because F and E are the midpoints of AB and CD respectively, both FB and DE have lengths of 6. Thus, . Because of 45-45-90 right triangles, . Now, letting and using Law of Cosines on , we have Using the quadratic formula, we arrive at Taking the positive root, and the answer is thus .
Final answer
96