1975 USAMO Problems/Problem 4

Revision as of 17:15, 12 January 2010 by Vo Duc Dien (talk | contribs) (Solution)

Problem

Two given circles intersect in two points $P$ and $Q$. Show how to construct a segment $AB$ passing through $P$ and terminating on the two circles such that $AP\cdot PB$ is a maximum.

[asy] size(150); defaultpen(fontsize(7)); pair A=(0,0), B=(10,0), P=(4,0), Q=(3.7,-2.5); draw(A--B); draw(circumcircle(A,P,Q)); draw(circumcircle(B,P,Q)); label("A",A,(-1,1));label("P",P,(0,1.5));label("B",B,(1,1));label("Q",Q,(-0.5,-1.5)); [/asy]

Solution posted at

http://www.cut-the-knot.org/wiki-math/index.php?n=MathematicalOlympiads.USA1975Problem4

by Vo Duc Dien

See also

1975 USAMO (ProblemsResources)
Preceded by
Problem 3
Followed by
Problem 5
1 2 3 4 5
All USAMO Problems and Solutions