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Geometry Difficulty 4.7 AIME Find the answer Italy

Problem:

Three circles of unit radius are tangent to one another and a fourth circle is tangent to all three, and does not enclose them. What is the radius of the fourth circle?

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Solution

Solution:

The answer is (D). Let us call ω1,ω2,ω3\omega_{1}, \omega_{2}, \omega_{3} the first three circles and Ω\Omega the fourth one, and let P1,P2,P3,PP_{1}, P_{2}, P_{3}, P be their respective centers. The triangle P1P2P3P_{1} P_{2} P_{3} is evidently equilateral (each of its sides equals twice the radius of the circles ω1,ω2,ω3\omega_{1}, \omega_{2}, \omega_{3}, that is, it is equal to 2). The point PP is equidistant from P1,P2,P3P_{1}, P_{2}, P_{3}, and is therefore the circumcenter of P1P2P3P_{1} P_{2} P_{3}. The distance PP1P P_{1} is then equal to the radius of the circle circumscribed about an equilateral triangle with side 2. Since in an equilateral triangle the circumcenter coincides with the centroid, and the centroid divides each median in ratio 1:21:2, we have that PP1P P_{1} is also equal to 2/32/3 of the median (or equivalently, the altitude) issuing from P1P_{1}. Since the angle at P2P_{2} is 6060^{\circ}, the length of this altitude can be calculated as 32P1P2=3\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2} P_{1} P_{2}=\sqrt{3}. We therefore obtain that the length PP1P P_{1} is 233\frac{2}{3} \sqrt{3}. This length, however, is also equal to the sum of the radii of ω1\omega_{1} and Ω\Omega, so by subtraction we obtain that the radius of Ω\Omega is 2331\frac{2}{3} \sqrt{3}-1.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement translated into English from it; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.