1979 USAMO Problems/Problem 4

Problem

$P$ lies between the rays $OA$ and $OB$ . Find $Q$ on $OA$ and $R$ on $OB$ collinear with $P$ so that $\frac{1}{PQ}\plus{} \frac{1}{PR}$ (Error compiling LaTeX. Unknown error_msg) is as large as possible.

Solution

Perform the inversion with center $P$ and radius $\overline{PO}.$ Lines $OA,OB$ go to the circles $(O_1),(O_2)$ passing through $P,O$ and the line $QR$ cuts $(O_1),(O_2)$ again at the inverses $Q',R'$ of $Q,R.$ Hence

$\frac{1}{PQ}+\frac{1}{PR}=\frac{PQ'+PR'}{PO^2}=\frac{Q'R'}{PO^2}$

Thus, it suffices to find the line through $P$ that maximizes the length of the segment $\overline{Q'R'}.$ If $M,N$ are the midpoints of $PQ',PR',$ i.e. the projections of $O_1,O_2$ onto $QR,$ then from the right trapezoid $O_1O_2NM,$ we deduce that $O_1O_2 \ge MN = \frac{_1}{^2}Q'R'.$ Consequently, $2 \cdot O_1O_2$ is the greatest possible length of $Q'R',$ which obviously occurs when $O_1O_2NM$ is a rectangle. Hence, $Q,R$ are the intersections of $OA,OB$ with the perpendicular to $PO$ at $P.$

1979 USAMO (Problems • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 3	Followed by Problem 5
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5
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1979 USAMO Problems/Problem 4

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