Joseph Keech in Bride's ChairA former correspondent of mine has recently cc'ed me a copy of an old (1783) article with a statement of properties of the famous Bride's Chair configuration, with the top (or bottom, depending on the outlook) part missing: Let ABC be a plane triangle, right angled at C; and let the squares ACDE and BCKL be described on the two legs AC and BC; also let the straight lines AL and BE be drawn from the two acute angles to the opposite angles L and E of the two squares, cutting the legs of the triangle in F and H; I say that CF shall be equal to CH and each of them to the side of a square HCFZ, inscribed in the triangle ABC.
References |Activities| |Contact| |Front page| |Contents| |Geometry| |Store| Copyright © 1996-2012 Alexander BogomolnySince AC = CD and BC = CK, AK = BD. And because the triangles AKL, ACF are similar, as well as triangles BDE and BCH,
Draw FZ (Z on AB) parallel to AC, and, consequently, to BL, also join HZ. Then because the triangles ABL and AZF are similar, J. Keech's note proves another property of the configuration (check in the applet the "extra" box): If the same construction remain, and if the figure HCFZ be circumscribed by the circle HCFZ, meeting AB of the triangle again in G; and if GC, GF, and GH be drawn: I say that the angles FGB, FGC, HGC, and HGA are each of them equal to half a right angle. I came across this result some time ago in a modern book of geometry problems and have treated it elsewhere.
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