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When talking about the condition for the three diagonals of a hexagon to be concurrent, we will think of Brianchon's theorem. Using software, I discovered a necessary and sufficient trigonometric relation for the three diagonals to be concurrent, similar to Cava's sine theorem. But I have never seen it anywhere.

Consider $ABCDEF$ be a hexagon, then $AD, BE, CF$ are concurrent if only if

$$\frac{\sin(α)} {\sin(β)} \frac{\sin(γ)} {\sin(δ)}\frac{\sin(ε)}{\sin(ζ)}\frac{\sin(η)}{\sin(θ)}\frac{\sin(ι)}{\sin(κ)}\frac{\sin(λ)}{\sin(μ)}=1$$

Question: Have you seen this result anywhere?

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  • $\begingroup$ Does not look like a necessary condition. This may be rewritten in terms of nine segments lengths on the diagonals (using Sine law), the expression is fractional linear with respect to each of six segments which are adjacent to the vertices of the hexagon. It can be easily equal to 1,no? $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 22 at 9:37
  • $\begingroup$ I checked by geogebra, I think $AD, BE, CF$ concurrent if and only if the above trigonometric formula is equal to 1. $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 22 at 10:06
  • $\begingroup$ How do you check this with geogebra? $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 22 at 10:13
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    $\begingroup$ @Michael, chord? $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 22 at 23:40
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    $\begingroup$ Hello, first prove your identity for a triangle ($C\in (BD) $ etc) which reduces to Ceva theorem by the sine rule and the identity is true. Then for these concurrent diagonals at $P$ stretch point $C$ along $(FP)$ and apply the sine rule in new figure again to prove that the ratio is constant (here the changes are for angles $\beta$, $\epsilon$, $\gamma$ and $\delta$). Doing that for $A$ and $E$ proves the direct direction. The other direction is not true as @FedorPetrov noticed you may move the points to obtain the ratio 1 in this identity despite that the diagonals are not concurrent. $\endgroup$
    – Toni Mhax
    Commented Sep 24 at 6:08

2 Answers 2

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Ok here is the comment with a figure.

A point in figure First consider the identity where $C$ is on $(BD)$, $A$ on $(BF)$ and $E$ on $(FD)$. This reads for example as $$\frac{\sin(α')} {\sin(β')} \frac{\sin(γ')} {\sin(\pi-\gamma')}\frac{\sin(ε')}{\sin(ζ')}\frac{\sin(η')}{\sin(\pi-η')}\frac{\sin(ι')}{\sin(κ')}\frac{\sin(λ')}{\sin(\pi-\lambda')}=1$$ Then applying sine rule $$\frac{\sin{(κ')}}{BG}=\frac{\sin{(\gamma')}}{BF}$$ also $$\frac{\sin{(ι')}}{GD}=\frac{\sin{(\pi-\gamma')}}{FD}$$ So $$\frac{\sin(ι')}{\sin(κ')}=\dfrac{DG}{GB}\dfrac{BF}{FD};$$ likewise for the other angles the product simplifies to one by Ceva theorem. The diagonals intersect at $P$. When $C$ moves from $G$ on $(FP)$ the ratio remains one by the sine rule also as $$\dfrac{\sin{(\beta')}}{\sin{(\epsilon')}}=\dfrac{\sin{(\beta)}\sin{(\delta)}}{\sin{(\epsilon)}\sin{(\gamma)}}$$ From $\frac{\sin{(\beta')}}{PD}=\frac{\sin{(\epsilon')}}{BP}$, $\frac{\sin{(\gamma)}}{BP}=\frac{\sin{(\beta)}}{PC}$, and $\frac{\sin{(\epsilon)}}{PC}=\frac{\sin{(\delta)}}{PD}$.

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One can state the original conjecture in terms of loci as follows: fix the first five vertices and denote the sixth by $P=(x,y)$. Consider the two loci

  1. those $P$ for which the concurrency holds;

  2. those $P$ for which the sine condition holds.

The conjecture that these two loci coincide is, as shown above, false--the first locus is a proper subset of the second. One can make this result more precise as follows: the first locus is a straight line (the one through $A_3$ and the intersection of $A_1A_4$ and $A_2A_5$). The second is the union of this line and a conic section.

The proof is computational. One calculates the area of the triangle carved out by the three main diagonals (it is a linear form in $x,y$) and the difference of the two sine products (after simplification, this is a quartic). The latter quartic is the product of the square of the above linear form and a quadratic form. The required conic is the zero set of the latter.

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