Problem:
Let and be two points in the plane with , and let be a circle with center and radius . Suppose that there exist two points and on with and . Compute the minimum possible value of .
Problem:
Let and be two points in the plane with , and let be a circle with center and radius . Suppose that there exist two points and on with and . Compute the minimum possible value of .
Solution:
Let denote a counterclockwise rotation about point followed by a dilation centered at with scale factor . Similarly, let denote a clockwise rotation about point followed by a dilation centered at with scale factor . For any point in the plane, there exists a point on such that and if and only if lies on or . Thus, such points and on exist if and only if intersects or . So, the minimum possible value of occurs when is tangent to and . This happens when , i.e., when . Therefore, the minimum possible value of is .