This question took me over an hour to solve, but I can now share my findings with you! I am making the assumption that you meant triangles AXB and AXC in place of APB and APC. It is quite algebra-intensive. If this is not what you meant, then I wasted a long time of my day today :(
I created a diagram, and I added line segments and circles where I found necessary. I realize that the diagram is quite large and cluttered. Here it is below:
I will be utilizing coordinate geometry for this problem. With the diagram in its current orientation, I know that B=(-14,0) and X=(0,0) and C=(4,0). This way, I know the length of the base of △ABC is 18. The only coordinate I need now is the y-coordinate of point A because that is the height of △ABC. Finding the area of the triangle is trivial at that point. Unfortunately, finding this coordinate is not so easy.
Since I don't know what the y-coordinate of point A, and I do not see an easy way to find the y-coordinate (or even the x-coordinate) of point A, I will denote them with variable letters. Let a = the x-coordinate of point A, and let b = the y-coordinate of point A. It would be nice if there was a way to relate a and b together, and I see one way of doing that. Since XA=13, I can use the distance formula to relate a and b together like so:
d2XA=(a−0)2+(b−0)2132=a2+b2b2=169−a2b=√169−a2
b is now written in terms of a, but now I am going to introduce a theorem that seems unrelated. That theorem states the following: The perpendicular bisector of a chord of a circle passes through the center of that circle. I have slyly used that theorem to my advantage here. ¯AX is a chord of both circumcircles of △ABX and △ACX. ↔ED is the perpendicular bisector of ¯AX, which, by the theorem I just stated, also pass through the circumcenters of both triangles.
We can find the slope of ¯AX and then use the properties of perpendicular line to find the slope of ↔ED.
m¯AX=ba∴m↔ED=−ab
But we can do more than that! Point M on the diagram represents the midpoint of ¯AX, and we can find those coordinates in terms of a and b, too.
M=(a2,b2).
But we can do more that that, too. We can now derive an equation of ↔ED because we know the slope of the line and one point of the line. I will use point-slope form to start and simplify as much as possible from there.
y−b2=−ab(x−a2)y=−abx+a22b+b2y=−2a2bx+a22b+b22by=−2ax+a2+b22b | I substituted in 169−a2 for b2 because I noticed that there would be some nice cancellation. |
y=−2ax+a2+(169−a2)2by=−2ax+1692b | I decided not to simply further than this, at least for now. |
Remember that theorem I mentioned earlier? Yeah, we are using that one again. ¯BX is a chord of circle E, so E's center lies on its perpendicular bisector, which also lies on the line x=−7. By parallel reasoning, circle D's center lies on x=2. Let's use this newly discovered information to our advantage again!
yE=−2a∗−7+1692byE=14a+1692b | yD=−2a∗2+1692byD=−4a+1692b |
We now know the x- and y-coordinates of the both circumcircles, so we can use the distance formula to write an expression for both radii.
d¯EX=rEd¯EX=√(−7−0)2+(yE−0)2d¯EX=√49+y2E | d¯DX=rDd¯DX=√(2−0)2+(yD−0)2d¯DX=√4+y2D |
Conveniently, both radii are of the same length, so we can set the distances we just found equal to each other. We will finally be able to isolate a variable. How exciting! At this point, the rest is simply a test of your algebraic finesse. For an added challenge, I decided to avoid the use of a calculator.
√49+y2E=√4+y2D49+y2E=4+y2D45+y2E=y2D | Let's subsitute in the corresponding expressions for yE and yD. |
45+(14a+1692b)2=(−4a+1692b)245+196a2+2∗169∗14a+16924b2=16a2−2∗169∗4a+16924b2180b2+196a2+28∗169∗a+1692=16a2−8∗169∗a+1692180(169−a2)+196a2+28∗169∗a=16a2−8∗169∗a45(169−a2)+49a2+7∗169∗a=4a2−2∗169∗a45∗169−45a2+45a2+7∗169∗a=−2∗169∗a45∗169+7∗169∗a=−2∗169∗a45+7a=−2a−9a=45a=−5 | We finally solved for a. Yes, I checked if the value for a seems reasonable, and it certainly does. |
b=√169−a2b=√169−(−5)2b=12 | |
Finally! Remember that b was the y-coordinate of point A, which is also the height of △ABC. Now, we can finally find the area of the triangle.
A△ABC=12∗18∗12A△ABC=108
That's it! We are done.