Pages

Bookmark and Share
Showing posts with label center of mass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label center of mass. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Triangle Inequality

In a triangle $ABC$, let $a = BC, b = AC, c = AB$. For any point $M$ and real numbers $x,y,z$, show that

$(x+y+z)(xMA^2 + yMB^2 + zMC^2) \geq xyc^2 + xzb^2 + yza^2$

Solution
We shall show that the inequality above is equivalent to
$$(x \vec{MA} + y \vec{MB} + z \vec{MC})^2 \geq 0$$

Indeed, since:
$$2\vec{MA} \vec{MB} = MA^2 + MB^2 - c^2$$
so
$$2xy\vec{MA} \vec{MB} = xyMA^2 + xyMB^2 - xyc^2$$
$$2yz\vec{MB} \vec{MC} = yzMB^2 + yzMC^2 - yza^2$$
$$2zx\vec{MC} \vec{MA} = zxMC^2 + zxMA^2 - zxb^2$$

Adding them, we obtain:
$$RHS = \sum x(y+z)MA^2 - 2\sum xy \vec{MA} \vec{MB}$$

So
$$LHS - RHS = \sum x^2MA^2 + \sum x(y+z)MA^2 - RHS = \sum x^2 MA^2 + 2\sum xy \vec{MA} \vec{MB}$$
$$= (x \vec{MA} + y \vec{MB} + z \vec{MC})^2 \geq 0 $$