Brother Brocard's Brilliant Biological Bond

Geometry Level 5

In a unit circle, two fixed endpoints on the diameter and the third point altogether form the triangle. As the third point varies, two loci of Brocard points - Ω \color{#EC7300}\Omega (orange) and Ω \color{#3D99F6}\Omega' (blue) - each form the teardrop curve. As shown in the animation, these points are formed by extending three segments, for which all three respective angles are equal with the unique Brocard angle ω \omega .

For this problem, find the total largest area enclosed by both curves (above in blue). If the area is A A , input 1 0 6 A \lfloor 10^6 A\rfloor as your answer.


The answer is 1881336.

This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and, finally, (c) loading the non-javascript version of this page . We're sorry about the hassle.

1 solution

Mark Hennings
May 12, 2021

Time for a general approach using trilinear coordinates. Let us set up the (by now) standard angle θ = B A C \theta = \angle BAC , so that A , B , C A,B,C have coordinates ( 1 , 0 ) (-1,0) , ( 1 , 0 ) (1,0) and ( cos 2 θ , sin 2 θ ) (\cos2\theta,\sin2\theta) respectively, and so the triangle A B C ABC has sides a = 2 sin θ a=2\sin\theta , b = 2 cos θ b=2\cos\theta , c = 2 c=2 . Consider a point P P which has exact trilinear coordinates u : v : w u:v:w , so that u , v , w u,v,w are the perpendicular distances from P P to the sides B C , A C , A B BC,AC,AB respectively. We note that 1 2 ( a u + b v + c w ) = Δ \tfrac12(au + bv + cw) = \Delta , the area of A B C ABC , and hence u sin θ + v cos θ + w = sin 2 θ u\sin\theta + v\cos\theta + w \; = \; \sin2\theta Since C D P E CDPE is a rectangle, we deduce that O P = O C u ( cos θ sin θ ) + v ( sin θ cos θ ) \overrightarrow{OP} \; = \; \overrightarrow{OC} - u\binom{\cos\theta}{\sin\theta} + v\binom{\sin\theta}{-\cos\theta} and hence P P has coordinates ( X ( θ ) , Y ( θ ) ) = ( cos 2 θ u cos θ + v sin θ , w ) \big(X(\theta),Y(\theta)\big) \; = \; \big(\cos2\theta -u\cos\theta +v\sin\theta,w\big) The two Brocard points Ω \Omega and Ω \Omega' have relative trilinear coordinates c b : a c : b a b c : c a : a b \frac{c}{b}\,:\, \frac{a}{c}\,:\, \frac{b}{a} \hspace{1cm} \frac{b}{c}\,:\, \frac{c}{a}\,:\, \frac{a}{b} respectively, and so Ω \Omega has coordinates ( X ( θ ) , Y ( θ ) ) = ( 8 ( cos 4 θ + cos 2 θ 1 ) 9 cos 4 θ , 16 sin θ cos 3 θ 9 cos 4 θ ) \big(X(\theta),Y(\theta)\big) \; = \; \left(\frac{8(\cos^4\theta + \cos^2\theta - 1)}{9 - \cos4\theta}\,,\,\frac{16\sin\theta\cos^3\theta}{9 - \cos4\theta}\right) The loci of Ω \Omega and Ω \Omega' are shown in blue and purple respectively here. The locus of Ω \Omega' is the reflection of the locus of Ω \Omega in the y y -axis. Thus the desired area is equal to 4 4 times the area of the interior of the locus of Ω \Omega that lies in the first quadrant. Thus we want to calculate A = 4 θ 0 0 X ( θ ) Y ( θ ) d θ = 2048 0 θ 0 cos 4 θ ( 11 + 4 cos 2 θ + cos 4 θ ) sin 2 θ ( 9 cos 4 θ ) 3 d θ A \;=\; 4\int_{\theta_0}^0 X'(\theta)Y(\theta)\,d\theta \; = \; 2048 \int_0^{\theta_0} \frac{\cos^4\theta (11 + 4\cos2\theta + \cos4\theta) \sin^2\theta}{(9 - \cos4 \theta)^3}\,d\theta where θ 0 = cos 1 1 2 ( 5 1 ) \theta_0 = \cos^{-1}\sqrt{\tfrac12(\sqrt{5}-1)} is the value of the parameter θ \theta where the locus of Ω \Omega meets the positive y y -axis. A t = tan θ t = \tan\theta substitution, followed by partial fractions, will handle this integral, and we obtain A = 1 5 [ 5 2 ( 5 1 ) 10 tan 1 5 2 + 2 5 tan 1 5 ( 2 + 5 ) ] A \; =\; \frac15\left[5 \sqrt{2 (\sqrt5-1)} - 10 \tan^{-1}\sqrt{\sqrt5 -2} + 2 \sqrt5 \tan^{-1}\sqrt{5 (2 + \sqrt5)}\right] and hence 1 0 6 A = 1881336 \lfloor 10^6 A \rfloor \; =\; \boxed{1881336} .

0 pending reports

×

Problem Loading...

Note Loading...

Set Loading...