The first Brocard point is the interior point (also denoted or ) of a triangle with points labeled in counterclockwise order for which the angles , , and are equal, with the unique such angle denoted . It is not a triangle center, but has trilinear coordinates
(1)
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(Kimberling 1998, p. 47).
Note that extreme care is needed when consulting the literature, since reversing the order in which the points of the triangle are labeled results in exchanging the Brocard points.
The second Brocard point is the interior point (also denoted or ) for which the angles , , and are equal, with the unique such angle denoted . It is not a triangle center, but has trilinear coordinates
(2)
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(Kimberling 1998, p. 47).
Moreover, the two angles are equal, and this angle is called the Brocard angle,
(3)
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(4)
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The first two Brocard points are isogonal conjugates (Johnson 1929, p. 266). They were described by French army officer Henri Brocard in 1875, although they had previously been investigated by Jacobi and, in 1816, Crelle (Wells 1991; Honsberger 1995, p. 98). They satisfy
(5)
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where is the circumcenter, is the circumradius, and , where is the circumcenter and is the Brocard angle (Honsberger 1995, p. 106).
The common statement (Bernhart 1959; Wells 1991, pp. 21-22; Marshall et al. 2005) attributed to Brocard in response to an 1877 question from Edouard Lucas, namely that if three dogs start at the vertices of a triangle and chase either their left or right neighbor at a constant speed, the three will meet at either or , is incorrect. This can be seen by considering an isosceles triangle that is nearly collinear and noting that two of the dogs will need to go much further than the other dog and so can't be traveling at the same speed (cf. Peterson 2001, Nester) in order to meet the other two at one of the points or .
One Brocard line, triangle median, and symmedian (out of the three of each) are concurrent, with , , and meeting at a point, where is the triangle centroid and is the symmedian point. Similarly, , , and meet at a point which is the isogonal conjugate of the first (Johnson 1929, pp. 268-269; Honsberger 1995, pp. 121-124).
Let be the circle which passes through the vertices and and is tangent to the line at , and similarly for and . Then the circles , , and intersect in the first Brocard point . Similarly, let be the circle which passes through the vertices and and is tangent to the line at , and similarly for and . Then the circles , , and intersect in the second Brocard points (Johnson 1929, pp. 264-265; Honsberger 1995, pp. 99-100).
The pedal triangles of and are congruent, and similar to the triangle (Johnson 1929, p. 269). Lengths involving the Brocard points include
(6)
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(7)
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Extend the segments , , and to the circumcircle of to form , and the segments , , and to form . Then and are congruent to (Honsberger 1995, pp. 104-106).
The third Brocard point is related to a given triangle by the triangle center function
(8)
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(Casey 1893, Kimberling 1994) and is Kimberling center . The third Brocard point (or or ) is collinear with the Spieker center and the isotomic conjugate of its triangle's incenter.