Problem:
There exists a unique circle that is both tangent to the parabola at two points and tangent to the curve . Compute the radius of this circle.
Proposed by: Karthik Venkata Vedula
Problem:
There exists a unique circle that is both tangent to the parabola at two points and tangent to the curve . Compute the radius of this circle.
Proposed by: Karthik Venkata Vedula
Solution:

We can square both sides of the second curve to get , which further rearranges to
This relation implies that curves and map to each other under inversion about the unit circle . Therefore, the unique circle we seek must be invariant under inversion about .
Since the circle is tangent to , we know that the circle is of the form
We know that the length of the tangent from to this circle is . Since the distance from to the center of the circle is , using the Pythagorean Theorem gives .
Because the parabola is tangent to this circle at two distinct points, the equation must have two double roots. Therefore,
must be a perfect square, so .
This means , so the radius of the circle is .