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Mtptopics 3

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Mtptopics 3

Uploaded by

codewizard.19
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Round Three

The first section of the Round Three Mandelbrot Team Play is reproduced below. A list of
topics and practice problems are also provided to aid in preparation. Note that these problems are
not meant to serve as a precise indicator of the problems that will appear on the contest. However,
students who understand how to solve them should be able to make significantly more progress
than they might have otherwise. So work hard on the problems, and good luck on the Team Play!
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Facts: Given three non-collinear points A, B and C in the plane, there are precisely four
circles tangent to all three of the lines AB, AC and BC. The one within 4ABC is the
incircle, while the remaining three are called excircles. The centers and radii of these circles
are commonly denoted I, Ia , Ib , Ic and r, ra , rb , rc . There are many relationships among the
lengths defined by the points of tangency. Thus in the diagram below we have BTa = CUa .
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Topics: incircle/excircles, circumcircle, similar triangles, equally spaced lines, circle facts

Practice Problems
1. On a sheet of blank paper plot three points A, B and C towards the middle forming a “nothing”
triangle. (Not equilateral, not isosceles, not right, not obtuse.) Next draw lines AB, AC and BC.
At point A draw the two lines that bisect all four angles, then do the same at points B and C.
What sort of figure do these six angle bisector lines form? Explain why this occurs.
2. Draw the circle through points A, B and C, called the circumcircle, and let M be the point
where the angle bisector of 6 BAC intersects this circle. Show that M is the midpoint of arc BC.
3. Next consider the point N where the other (exterior) angle bisector at A meets the circumcircle.
Prove that N is the midpoint of major arc BC; i.e. the arc that goes the “long way around the
circle” from B to C.
4. Let L be the midpoint of AN , let D be the point diametrically opposite A on the circumcircle,
and call the center of this circle O. Explain why lines AM , LO and N D are equally spaced lines.
What does this imply about the segments these lines cut off on side BC?
5. The various angle bisectors drawn in the first problem above are concurrent at the incenter I
and the excenters Ia , Ib and Ic . Label these points in your diagram (I is inside 4ABC, while Ia
is on the other side of BC from A, and so on), then sketch the circles with these centers that are
tangent to all three of lines AB, AC and BC.
6. Let Ta be the point of tangency of the incircle with side BC, and let Ua be the point of tangency
of the excircle around Ia with side BC. Figure out why BTa = CUa .

Hints and answers on the next page. =⇒


Hints and Answers

1. The six angle bisector lines form a larger triangle along with its three altitudes. The perpendic-
ularity results from the fact that the adjacent angles at A sum to 180◦ (before we drew the angle
bisectors), so half these angles sum to 90◦ .
2. Note that angles 6 BAM and 6 M AC are congruent. Since these angles intercept arcs BM and
M C, the arcs are also congruent, which makes M the midpoint.
3. There are several ways to prove this using various inscribed angles. An alternate approach is to
argue that since the two angle bisectors at A are perpendicular we have m6 M AN = 90◦ , so M N
has measure 180◦ , meaning that M and N are diametrically opposite one another on the circle.
Since M is the midpoint of arc BC, it follows that N is the midpoint of major arc BC. (The
reader should fill in the details.)
4. Here is a sketch of the solution. First argue that all three lines are perpendicular to line AN ,
which will show that they are parallel. We have already seen that line AM is, and we get a right
angle at N since AD is a diameter of the circle. Next show triangles 4OLA and 4OLN are
congruent to deduce that we have a right angle at L. Finally, since L is the midpoint of AN , these
parallel lines are equally spaced, which means that the segments they cut off on line BC (or any
other transversal, for that matter) will be congruent.
5. Sketch left to the reader.
6. This is a standard fact regarding incircles and excircles. We refer the reader to an online source
such as http://www.cut-the-knot.org/triangle/InExCircles.shtml for an explanation.

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