If and are fixed points on a given circle and is a variable diameter of the same circle, determine the locus of the point of intersection of lines and . You may assume that is not a diameter.Figure (Asymptote source)
size(300); defaultpen(fontsize(8)); real r=10; picture pica, picb; pair A=r*expi(5*pi/6), B=r*expi(pi/6), X=r*expi(pi/3), X1=r*expi(-pi/12), Y=r*expi(4*pi/3), Y1=r*expi(11*pi/12), O=(0,0), P, P1; P = extension(A,X,B,Y);P1 = extension(A,X1,B,Y1); path circ1 = Circle((0,0),r); draw(pica, circ1);draw(pica, B--A--P--Y--X);dot(pica,P^^O); label(pica,"$A$",A,(-1,1));label(pica,"$B$",B,(1,0));label(pica,"$X$",X,(0,1));label(pica,"$Y$",Y,(0,-1));label(pica,"$P$",P,(1,1));label(pica,"$O$",O,(-1,1));label(pica,"(a)",O+(0,-13),(0,0)); draw(picb, circ1);draw(picb, B--A--X1--Y1--B);dot(picb,P1^^O); label(picb,"$A$",A,(-1,1));label(picb,"$B$",B,(1,1));label(picb,"$X$",X1,(1,-1));label(picb,"$Y$",Y1,(-1,0));label(picb,"$P'$",P1,(-1,-1));label(picb,"$O$",O,(-1,-1)); label(picb,"(b)",O+(0,-13),(0,0)); add(pica); add(shift(30*right)*picb);
Solution
WLOG, assume that the circle is the unit circle centered at the origin. Then the points and have coordinates and respectively and and have coordinates and . Note that these coordinates satisfy and since these points are on a unit circle. Now we can find equations for the lines: Solving these simultaneous equations gives coordinates for in terms of and : . These coordinates can be parametrized in Cartesian variables as follows: Now solve for and to get and . Then since which reduces to This equation defines a circle and is the locus of all intersection points . In order to define this locus more generally, find the slope of this circle function using implicit differentiation: Now note that at points and , this slope expression reduces to and respectively, values which are identical to the slopes of lines and . Thus we conclude that the complete locus of intersection points is the circle tangent to lines and at points and respectively.