Maths Olympiad Prep

Track / Stage 5 / 70 of 400 #670 of 1964

Problem 670

AIME late
Geometry Difficulty 5.1 Find the answer

Inscribe an nn-sided polygon in the given circle, one of whose sides passes through the given point, and the other sides are parallel to the given lines.

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Official solution

17.29. Under sequential symmetries with respect to lines l1,,ln1l_{1}, \ldots, l_{n-1}, which are perpendicular to the given lines and pass through the center of the circle, vertex A1A_{1} of the desired polygon is transformed into vertex AnA_{n}. If nn is odd, the composition of these symmetries is a rotation by a known angle, so through point MM one needs to draw the chord A1AnA_{1} A_{n} of known length. If nn is even, the considered composition is a symmetry with respect to some line, so from point MM one needs to drop a perpendicular to this line.

Source: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty, ordering) added by this project.