2023 AIME II Problems/Problem 12
Solution
Because is the midpoint of , following from the Steward's theorem, .
Because , , , are concyclic, , .
Denote .
In , following from the law of sines,
Thus,
In , following from the law of sines,
Thus,
Taking , we get
In , following from the law of sines,
Thus, Equations (2) and (3) imply
Next, we compute and .
We have
We have
Taking (5) and (6) into (4), we get . Therefore, the answer is .
Solution 2 (
Define to be the foot of the altitude from to . Furthermore, define to be the foot of the altitude from to . From here, one can find , either using the 13-14-15 triangle or by calculating the area of two ways. Then, we find and using Pythagorean theorem. Let . By AA similarity, and are similar. By similarity ratios, Thus, . Similarly, . Now, we angle chase from our requirement to obtain new information. Take the tangent of both sides to obtain By the definition of the tangent function on right triangles, we have , , and . By abusing the tangent angle addition formula, we can find that By substituting , and using tangent angle subtraction formula we find that Finally, using similarity formulas, we can find . Plugging in and , we find that Thus, our final answer is . ~Steven Chen (Professor Chen Education Palace, www.professorchenedu.com)