ka May Highlights and 2025 AoPS Online Class Information
jlacosta0
May 1, 2025
May is an exciting month! National MATHCOUNTS is the second week of May in Washington D.C. and our Founder, Richard Rusczyk will be presenting a seminar, Preparing Strong Math Students for College and Careers, on May 11th.
Are you interested in working towards MATHCOUNTS and don’t know where to start? We have you covered! If you have taken Prealgebra, then you are ready for MATHCOUNTS/AMC 8 Basics. Already aiming for State or National MATHCOUNTS and harder AMC 8 problems? Then our MATHCOUNTS/AMC 8 Advanced course is for you.
Summer camps are starting next month at the Virtual Campus in math and language arts that are 2 - to 4 - weeks in duration. Spaces are still available - don’t miss your chance to have an enriching summer experience. There are middle and high school competition math camps as well as Math Beasts camps that review key topics coupled with fun explorations covering areas such as graph theory (Math Beasts Camp 6), cryptography (Math Beasts Camp 7-8), and topology (Math Beasts Camp 8-9)!
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[list][*]May 9th, 4:30pm PT/7:30pm ET, Casework 2: Overwhelming Evidence — A Text Adventure, a game where participants will work together to navigate the map, solve puzzles, and win! All are welcome.
[*]May 19th, 4:30pm PT/7:30pm ET, What's Next After Beast Academy?, designed for students finishing Beast Academy and ready for Prealgebra 1.
[*]May 20th, 4:00pm PT/7:00pm ET, Mathcamp 2025 Qualifying Quiz Part 1 Math Jam, Problems 1 to 4, join the Canada/USA Mathcamp staff for this exciting Math Jam, where they discuss solutions to Problems 1 to 4 of the 2025 Mathcamp Qualifying Quiz!
[*]May 21st, 4:00pm PT/7:00pm ET, Mathcamp 2025 Qualifying Quiz Part 2 Math Jam, Problems 5 and 6, Canada/USA Mathcamp staff will discuss solutions to Problems 5 and 6 of the 2025 Mathcamp Qualifying Quiz![/list]
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Collinearity in a Harmonic Configuration from a Cyclic Quadrilateral
kieusuong0
18 minutes ago
Let be a fixed circle, and let be a point outside such that . A variable line through intersects the circle at two points and , such that the quadrilateral is cyclic, where are fixed points on the circle.
Define the following:
- ,
- ,
- is the tangent from to the circle , and is the point of tangency.
**Problem:**
Prove that for all such configurations:
1. The points ,, and are collinear.
2. The line is perpendicular to chord .
3. As the line through varies, the point traces a fixed straight line, which is parallel to the isogonal conjugate axis (the so-called *isotropic line*) of the centers and .
---
### Outline of a Synthetic Proof:
**1. Harmonic Configuration:**
- Since lie on a circle, their cross-ratio is harmonic: - The intersection points , and form a well-known harmonic setup along the diagonals of the quadrilateral.
**2. Collinearity of ,,:**
- The line is tangent to , and due to harmonicity and projective duality, the polar of passes through .
- Thus, ,, and must lie on a common line.
**3. Perpendicularity:**
- Since is tangent at and is a chord, the angle between and chord is right.
- Therefore, line is perpendicular to .
**4. Quasi-directrix of :**
- As the line through varies, the point moves.
- However, all such points lie on a fixed line, which is perpendicular to , and is parallel to the isogonal (or isotropic) line determined by the centers and .
---
**Further Questions for Discussion:**
- Can this configuration be extended to other conics, such as ellipses?
- Is there a pure projective geometry interpretation (perhaps using polar reciprocity)?
- What is the locus of point , or of line , as varies?
*This configuration arose from a geometric investigation involving cyclic quadrilaterals and harmonic bundles. Any insights, counterexamples, or improvements are warmly welcomed.*
one method is to separately consider 3 cases for the determinant and use variation of parameters in each case to find the solution. Is there any short way to calculate solution?
Write and we want to have a multiple root of exact order 2. Hence and is also a root of . Then .
Then .
For we have hence in . To check if there are other solutions we have to consider . It is easy to check that since and that is not true. Hence and is the only solution to in . Hence is the unique solution in of .
Finally we have to check that works but that is easy since is the double root.
Indeed we have .
Note that in , the problem is more complicated. Indeed, and (decomposition in irreducibles); then the second factor has roots in .
Note that is the value of the Klein quartic for , cf.
https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c7t435f7h3530741_how_to_solve_this_problem
This post has been edited 1 time. Last edited by loup blanc, Apr 29, 2025, 6:09 AM