Not all circles are orthogonal

Geometry Level 5

Consider Δ A B C \Delta ABC whose circumcircle and nine-point circle are orthogonal to each other.If A , B , C A,B,C are angles of Δ A B C \Delta ABC , find the value of cos A cos B cos C \cos A \cos B \cos C .


The answer is -0.5.

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1 solution

Shourya Pandey
Oct 23, 2015

Denote the circumcentre by O O and the nine-point centre by N N . Because the circumcircle and the nine-point circle are orthogonal to each other and have radii R R and R / 2 R/2 respectively, we have

R 2 + ( R 2 ) 2 = O N 2 R^2 +( \frac {R}{2})^2 = ON ^2

or 5 × R 2 = ( 2 × O N ) 2 = O H 2 = R 2 ( 1 8 c o s A c o s B c o s C ) 5 \times R^2 = (2 \times ON)^2 = OH^2 = R^2(1 - 8cosAcosBcosC) , where H H is the orthocentre of the triangle.

So 5 = 1 8 c o s A c o s B c o s C 5 = 1- 8cosAcosBcosC and therefore c o s A c o s B c o s C = 1 2 cosAcosBcosC = \frac {-1}{2}

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