Nine-point circle

The nine points

Even if the orthocenter and circumcenter fall outside
of the triangle, the construction still works.

In geometry, the nine-point circle is a circle

that can be constructed for any given
triangle. It is so named because it passes
through nine significant concyclic points
defined from the triangle. These nine
points are:

The midpoint of each side of the triangle

 The foot of each altitude
The midpoint of the line segment from
each vertex of the triangle to the
orthocenter (where the three altitudes
meet; these line segments lie on their
respective altitudes).[1][2]

The nine-point circle is also known as

Feuerbach's circle, Euler's circle, Terquem's
circle, the six-points circle, the twelve-
points circle, the n-point circle, the
medioscribed circle, the mid circle or the
circum-midcircle. Its center is the nine-
point center of the triangle.[3][4]

Significant nine points

The diagram above shows the nine
significant points of the nine-point circle.
Points D, E, and F are the midpoints of the
three sides of the triangle. Points G, H, and
I are the feet of the altitudes of the
triangle. Points J, K, and L are the
midpoints of the line segments between
each altitude's vertex intersection (points
A, B, and C) and the triangle's orthocenter
(point S).

For an acute triangle, six of the points (the

midpoints and altitude feet) lie on the
triangle itself; for an obtuse triangle two of
the altitudes have feet outside the triangle,
but these feet still belong to the nine-point
circle.

Discovery
Although he is credited for its discovery,
Karl Wilhelm Feuerbach did not entirely
discover the nine-point circle, but rather
the six point circle, recognizing the
significance of the midpoints of the three
sides of the triangle and the feet of the
altitudes of that triangle. (See Fig. 1, points
D, E, F, G, H, and I.) (At a slightly earlier
date, Charles Brianchon and Jean-Victor
Poncelet had stated and proven the same
theorem.) But soon after Feuerbach,
mathematician Olry Terquem himself
proved the existence of the circle. He was
the first to recognize the added
significance of the three midpoints
between the triangle's vertices and the
orthocenter. (See Fig. 1, points J, K, and L.)
Thus, Terquem was the first to use the
name nine-point circle.

Tangent circles
The nine-point circle is tangent to the incircle and
excircles

In 1822 Karl Feuerbach discovered that

any triangle's nine-point circle is externally
tangent to that triangle's three excircles
and internally tangent to its incircle; this
result is known as Feuerbach's theorem.
He proved that:

... the circle which passes through the

feet of the altitudes of a triangle is
 tangent to all four circles which in turn
are tangent to the three sides of the
triangle... (Feuerbach 1822)

The triangle center at which the incircle

and the nine-point circle touch is called the
Feuerbach point.

Other properties of the nine-

point circle
The radius of a triangle's circumcircle is
twice the radius of that triangle's nine-
point circle.[5]:p.153
 Figure 3

A nine-point circle bisects a line

segment going from the corresponding
triangle's orthocenter to any point on its
circumcircle.
 Figure 4

The center N of the nine-point circle

bisects a segment from the orthocenter
H to the circumcenter O (making the
orthocenter a center of dilation to both
circles):[5]:p.152
ON = NH.
The nine-point center N is one-fourth of
the way along the Euler line from the
centroid G to the orthocenter H:[5]:p.153
HN = 3NG.
The nine-point circle of a reference
triangle is the circumcircle of both the
reference triangle's medial triangle (with
vertices at the midpoints of the sides of
the reference triangle) and its orthic
triangle (with vertices at the feet of the
reference triangle's altitudes).[5]:p.153
The center of all rectangular hyperbolas
that pass through the vertices of a
triangle lies on its nine-point circle.
Examples include the well-known
rectangular hyperbolas of Keipert,
Jeřábek and Feuerbach. This fact is
known as the Feuerbach conic theorem.
The nine point circle and the 16 tangent circles of the
orthocentric system

If an orthocentric system of four points

A, B, C and H is given, then the four
triangles formed by any combination of
three distinct points of that system all
share the same nine-point circle. This is
a consequence of symmetry: the sides
of one triangle adjacent to a vertex that
is an orthocenter to another triangle are
segments from that second triangle. A
third midpoint lies on their common
side. (The same 'midpoints' defining
separate nine-point circles, those circles
must be concurrent.)
Consequently, these four triangles have
circumcircles with identical radii. Let N
represent the common nine-point center
and P be an arbitrary point in the plane
of the orthocentric system. Then
NA2+NB2+NC2+NH2 = 3R2
where R is the common circumradius;
and if
PA2+PB2+PC2+PH2 = K2,
where K is kept constant, then the locus
of P is a circle centered at N with a
radius . As P approaches N
the locus of P for the corresponding
constant K, collapses onto N the nine-
point center. Furthermore the nine-point
circle is the locus of P such that
PA2+PB2+PC2+PH2 = 4R2.
The centers of the incircle and excircles
of a triangle form an orthocentric
system. The nine-point circle created for
that orthocentric system is the
circumcircle of the original triangle. The
feet of the altitudes in the orthocentric
system are the vertices of the original
triangle.
If four arbitrary points A, B, C, D are
given that do not form an orthocentric
system, then the nine-point circles of
ABC, BCD, CDA and DAB concur at a
point. The remaining six intersection
points of these nine-point circles each
concur with the midpoints of the four
triangles. Remarkably, there exists a
unique nine-point conic, centered at the
centroid of these four arbitrary points,
that passes through all seven points of
intersection of these nine-point circles.
Furthermore because of the Feuerbach
conic theorem mentioned above, there
exists a unique rectangular circumconic,
centered at the common intersection
point of the four nine-point circles, that
passes through the four original
arbitrary points as well as the
orthocenters of the four triangles.
If four points A, B, C, D are given that
form a cyclic quadrilateral, then the nine-
point circles of ABC, BCD, CDA and DAB
concur at the anticenter of the cyclic
quadrilateral. The nine-point circles are
all congruent with a radius of half that of
the cyclic quadrilateral's circumcircle.
The nine-point circles form a set of four
Johnson circles. Consequently the four
nine-point centers are cyclic and lie on a
circle congruent to the four nine-point
circles that is centered at the anticenter
of the cyclic quadrilateral. Furthermore
the cyclic quadrilateral formed from the
four nine-pont centers is homothetic to
the reference cyclic quadrilateral ABCD
by a factor of  −1/2  and its homothetic
center (N) lies on the line connecting the
circumcenter (O) to the anticenter (M)
where
ON = 2NM.
The orthopole of lines passing through
the circumcenter lie on the nine-point
circle.
A triangle's circumcircle, its nine-point
circle, its polar circle, and the
circumcircle of its tangential triangle[6]
are coaxal.[7]
 Trilinear coordinates for the center of
the Kiepert hyperbola are
(b2 − c2)2/a : (c2 − a2)2/b : (a2 − b2)2/c
Trilinear coordinates for the center of
the Jeřábek hyperbola are
cos A sin2(B − C) : cos B sin2(C − A) :
cos C sin2(A − B)
Letting x : y : z be a variable point in
trilinear coordinates, an equation for the
nine-point circle is
x2sin 2A + y2sin 2B + z2sin 2C − 2(yz
sin A + zx sin B + xy sin C) = 0.

Generalization
The circle is an instance of a conic section
and the nine-point circle is an instance of
the general nine-point conic that has been
constructed with relation to a triangle ABC
and a fourth point P, where the particular
nine-point circle instance arises when P is
the orthocenter of ABC. The vertices of the
triangle and P determine a complete
quadrilateral and three "diagonal points"
where opposite sides of the quadrilateral
intersect. There are six "sidelines" in the
quadrilateral; the nine-point conic
intersects the midpoints of these and also
includes the diagonal points. The conic is
an ellipse when P is interior to ABC or in a
region sharing vertical angles with the
triangle, but a nine-point hyperbola occurs
when P is in one of the three adjacent
regions, and the hyperbola is rectangular
when P lies on the circumcircle of ABC.

See also
Lester's theorem
Poncelet point
Synthetic geometry

Notes
1. Altshiller-Court (1925, pp. 103–110)
2. Kay (1969, pp. 18,245)
3. Kocik, Jerzy; Solecki, Andrzej (2009).
"Disentangling a Triangle" . Amer. Math.
Monthly. 116 (3): 228–237.
doi:10.4169/193009709x470065 . Kocik
and Solecki (sharers of a 2010 Lester R.
Ford Award) give a proof of the Nine-Point
Circle Theorem.
4. Casey, John (1886). Nine-Point Circle
Theorem, in A Sequel to the First Six
Books of Euclid (4th ed.). London:
Longmans, Green, & Co. p. 58.
5. Posamentier, Alfred S., and Lehmann,
Ingmar. The Secrets of Triangles,
Prometheus Books, 2012.
6. Altshiller-Court (1925, p. 98)
7. Altshiller-Court (1925, p. 241)

References
Altshiller-Court, Nathan (1925), College
Geometry: An Introduction to the
Modern Geometry of the Triangle and
the Circle (2nd ed.), New York: Barnes &
Noble, LCCN 52013504
Feuerbach, Karl Wilhelm; Buzengeiger,
Carl Heribert Ignatz (1822),
Eigenschaften einiger merkwürdigen
Punkte des geradlinigen Dreiecks und
mehrerer durch sie bestimmten Linien
und Figuren. Eine analytisch-
trigonometrische Abhandlung
(Monograph ed.), Nürnberg: Wiessner.
Kay, David C. (1969), College Geometry,
New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
 LCCN 69012075

External links
"A Javascript demonstration of the nine
point circle" at rykap.com
Encyclopedia of Triangles Centers by
Clark Kimberling. The nine-point center
is indexed as X(5), the Feuerbach point,
as X(11), the center of the Kiepert
hyperbola as X(115), and the center of
the Jeřábek hyperbola as X(125).
History about the nine-point circle based
on J.S. MacKay's article from 1892:
History of the Nine Point Circle
Weisstein, Eric W. "Nine-Point Circle" .
MathWorld.
Weisstein, Eric W. "Orthopole" .
MathWorld.
Nine Point Circle in Java at cut-the-knot
Feuerbach's Theorem: a Proof at cut-
the-knot
Special lines and circles in a triangle by
Walter Fendt
An interactive Java applet showing
several triangle centers that lies on the
Nine Point Circle .
Interactive Nine Point Circle applet
from the Wolfram Demonstrations
Project
 Nine-point conic and Euler line
generalization at Dynamic Geometry
Sketches Generalizes nine-point circle
to a nine-point conic with an associated
generalization of the Euler line.

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