Sue Liu, S5, Madras College sent in a good solution which shows that if
and
are angles in a triangle and
then the triangle is isosceles. Can you prove a stronger result?
We start with the expression
Write
and
, then the given expression becomes
This gives
and we know the identity
Hence either
or
In case (1) we show that the angles
and
are equal.
and the tan function is periodic with period 180 degrees so
This gives
hence
, so the triangle is
isosceles.
In case (2), either
or
, hence
or
and in all the cases the triangle is isosceles.