Let be a convex quadrilateral for which the line segments and intersect perpendicularly at a point . Suppose , and are satisfied. Let us denote by and , respectively, the circle with center at and radius , the circle with center at and radius , the circle with center at and radius and the circle with center at and radius . Determine the value of if there exists a circle which is tangent to all of the circles and . Here we denote by the length of the line segment .
, 2013
Solution
Let . Choose xy-coordinate axis in such a way that , , , , are satisfied. Let be the circle tangent to each of the circles , and let be the center of and be its radius. Since the circle touches the circle tangentially from inside, we see that , which means that is satisfied. Simplifying this, we obtain
If we use the fact that each of the circles also touches the circle tangentially from inside, we obtain in the same way as above,
Consequently, if we let , then we have
Since , we obtain
from which we get, as , . Thus we obtain for the desired answer for the problem.
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