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SELECTION and TRAINING SESSION

Belarus geometry

Problem

The lines passing, respectively, through the points rotate uniformly and with the same angular velocity about the corresponding points. At an arbitrary moment by denote the intersection point of the lines and . Points and are defined similarly. It turned out that within one rotation there were two moments and such that the triangles and were equilateral and equally oriented. Prove that the triangle is always equilateral. (Aliaksei Vaidzelevich)
Solution
Since the lines rotate uniformly the angles between the lines and between the lines are equal for any moments . Hence the points lie on the circle, i.e. all points lie on the same circle. Moreover if the lines rotated by then the point passed along the arc with the measure . Therefore the points , and are moving uniformly and with the same angular velocity along some three circles. And one full-circle rotation there were two moments and such that the triangles and were equilateral and equally oriented.

Consider this situation on the complex plane and without loss of generality let the points make one full-circle rotation during one unit of time. Let be the coordinates of the centers and be the radii of the corresponding circles. Then the points and have the coordinates , and where and are angles corresponding to the initial positions of points. Then we know that where is the third root of unity. Note that after simple transformations the equation reduces to a linear equation of the variable . Since this equation has two different solutions and on a unit circle, it must be degenerate, i.e. it is an identity. Therefore the triangle is always equilateral.

Techniques

Complex numbers in geometryRotationConstructions and loci