Three points are marked on the transparent sheet of paper. Prove that the sheet can be folded along some line in such a way that these points form an equilateral triangle. by A.Khachaturyan
Problem
Source: Sharygin Geometry Olympiad 2016 Final Round problem 5 grade 8
Tags: geometry, paper, Equilateral Triangle
TheCoolDinosuar
16.07.2021 01:05
after finding the key lemma i thought the rest of the problem was done, but there was still some config issues that needed to be worked out
We will not consider edge cases in this problem for brevity since they don't impact the solution that much.
Call the points $A,B,C$. The idea is to show that there exists a line that fixes two of the points and moves the third after folding.
The following lemma is the heart of the problem.
Let $X,Y,P,Q$ be four points not all collinear. Then the perpendicular bisector of $PQ$ intersects segment $XY$ iff $XP-XQ$ and $YP-YQ$ have different signs.
Proof: Define $f(\lambda)=MP-MQ$, where $M=\lambda X+(1-\lambda)Y$. Clearly $f$ is continuous, so by IVT there's a point that's equidistant from $P$ and $Q$, an intersection point. The converse is also easy.
We first deal with the case where $A,B,C$ are collinear. Assume that $B$ lies between $A$ and $C$ with $BC>BA$. Construct equilateral triangle $\triangle BCD$. Then $BA-BD$ and $CA-CD$ are both positive. Folding over the perpendicular bisector of $AD$ fixes $B$ and $C$ and $A\mapsto D$.
Now we consider a triangle. Construct equilateral triangles $\triangle BCD,\triangle CAE,\triangle ABF$ on the interior of $\triangle ABC$. Let the perpendicular bisectors of $AD,BE,CF$ be $m_a,m_b,m_c$.
The claim is that at least two of $m_a,m_b,m_c$, do not intersect their respective sides.
Assume that $m_a$ intersects segment $BC$. Then by the lemma, $BA-BD=c-a$ and $CA-CD=b-a$ have different signs. WLOG let $b>a>c$. Since $b-c$ and $a-c$ have the same sign as well as the pair $c-b,a-b$, $m_b$ and $m_c$ do not intersect segments $CA$ and $AB$.
However, this isn't enough to solve yet. We still need to show at least one of $m_b$ and $m_c$ separates its respective vertex from the other two. Fortunately, this is easy. Since $AF<AC$ and $BF<BC$ from $b>a>c$, $A,B,F$ are on the same side of $m_c$, while $C$ is on the other. Thus, folding the paper over $m_c$ will do the trick.