Maths Olympiad Prep

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, 2014

Geometry Difficulty 5.5 AIME, harder Prove it Ireland

A square ABCDABCD is inscribed in a circle. Let EE be the midpoint of ADAD. The line CECE meets the circle again at FF. The lines FBFB and ACAC meet at GG and the line GEGE meets the arc AFDAFD of the circle at KK.
Find, with proof, the measure of ∠KAD\angle KAD.

Solution

Let OO be the intersection point of the diagonals ACAC and BDBD, which also is the centre of the circle. Because AA, BB, CC, FF are on a circle, we have ∠BFC=∠BAC=45∘\angle BFC = \angle BAC = 45^\circ. Since ∠CAD=45∘\angle CAD = 45^\circ, we obtain ∠BFC=∠CAD\angle BFC = \angle CAD and hence ∠AEGF\angle AEGF is cyclic.
Figure 1
This implies that ∠AEG=∠AFG=∠AFC−∠BFC=90∘−45∘=45∘\angle AEG = \angle AFG = \angle AFC - \angle BFC = 90^\circ - 45^\circ = 45^\circ. Because ∠ADB=45∘\angle ADB = 45^\circ, too, the lines EGEG and DODO are parallel.
Because EE is the midpoint of ADAD, GG is the midpoint of AOAO. As DBDB is perpendicular to ACAC we obtain now that KGKG is the perpendicular bisector of AOAO. Hence ∣AK∣=∣OK∣|AK| = |OK|. As ∣OK∣=∣OA∣|OK| = |OA| (both are radii), we see now that AOKAOK is an equilateral triangle. We obtain that ∠OAK=60∘\angle OAK = 60^\circ and so
∠KAD=∠OAK−∠CAD=60∘−45∘=15∘. \angle KAD = \angle OAK - \angle CAD = 60^\circ - 45^\circ = 15^\circ.

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