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Revision as of 18:14, 6 July 2011 by 1=2 (talk | contribs) (some progress on some random problem, will try to solve in dorms)

1966 IMO Problem 3 Progress

Let the tetrahedron be $ABCD$, and let the circumcenter be $O$. Therefore $OA=OB=OC=OD$. It's not hard to see that $O$ is the intersection of the planes that perpendicularly bisect the six sides of the tetrahedron. Label the plane that bisects $AB$ as $p_{AB}$, and define $p_{AC}$, $p_{BC}$, $p_{AD}$, $p_{BD}$, and $p_{CD}$ similarly. Now consider $p_{AB}$, $p_{BC}$, and $p_{CA}$. They perpendicularly bisect three coplanar segments, so their intersection is a line perpendicular to the plane containing $ABC$. Note that the circumcenter of $ABC$ is on this line.

    • solving easier version**

I shall prove that given triangle $ABC$, the minimum value of $PA+PB+PC$ is given when $P$ is the circumcenter of $ABC$. It's easy to see that, from the Pythagorean Theorem, that if $P$ is not on the plane containing $ABC$, then the projection $P'$ of $P$ onto said plane satisfies

\[P'A+P'B+P'C<PA+PB+PC\]

so it suffices to consider all points $P$ that are coplanar with $ABC$.