Two planes, PP and QQ, intersect along the line pp. The point AA is given in the plane PP, and the point CC in the plane QQ; neither of these points lies on the straight line pp. Construct an isosceles trapezoid ABCDABCD (with ABAB parallel to CDCD) in which a circle can be inscribed, and with vertices BB and DD lying in the planes PP and QQ respectively.

Solution

Both lines ABAB and DCDC must be parallel to p, since if one of them is not, then neither can be and they must both intersect pp (since they are both coplanar with pp), making them skew.

Now we note since a circle can be inscribed in the trapezoid/trapezium, we must have AB+DC=AD+BCAB + DC = AD + BC, and since the trapezoid/trapezium is isosceles, this implies that each of the trapezoid’s/trapezium’s legs has length equal to the average of the lengths of the bases.

We can find this average by dropping perpendicular AAAA’  to DC DC such that AA’ is on DCDC. The average will be ACA’C, which is one of the sides of the rectangle with sides on ABAB and DCDC with vertices at AA and CC.

We now draw a circle with center CC that contains AA’. The intersections of this circle with ABAB are the two possible values of BB, from either of which it is trivial to determine the corresponding location for DD. It is worth noting that the intersection points may concur (in which case there is only one distinct possibility, a square), or they may not occur at all.

Share this post

Leave a Reply

Trending

Discover more from ENIGMATH

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading