A triangle
is right angled at
. From each of
and
two angle trisectors are drawn to the opposite side, and from each of the four intersections a perpendicular is drawn onto the side
. The feet of these perpendiculars are named
and
in order from
.
Find the value of .
This problem is part of the set Advent Calendar 2014 .
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First I shall name the other ends of the trisectors H , G , E and F clockwise from A and call ∠ F A C α and ∠ H C A β :
First notice that α + β = 3 0 ∘ due to the angle sum in a triangle.
Now A P F B is cyclic so ∠ P B F = α . We use the same trick to show that ∠ M B H = β . So ∠ M B P = 9 0 ∘ − ( α + β ) = 6 0 ∘ .
We can apply a similar method on cyclic quadrilaterals A O E B and C N G B to show that ∠ N B O = 9 0 ∘ − 2 ( α + β ) = 3 0 ∘ .
Therefore ∠ M B N + ∠ O B P = 6 0 ∘ − 3 0 ∘ = 3 0 ∘