Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /469 of 520

Geometry Difficulty 4.2 AIME Find the answer

Inside a right circular cone with base radius 55 and height 1212 are three congruent spheres with radius rr. Each sphere is tangent to the other two spheres and also tangent to the base and side of the cone. What is rr?

Pick one

Solution

We can take half of a cross section of the sphere, as such:

Notice that we chose a cross section where one of the spheres was tangent to the lateral surface of the cone at DD.
To evaluate rr, we will find AEAE and ECEC in terms of rr; we also know that AE+EC=5AE+EC = 5, so with this, we can solve rr. Firstly, to find ECEC, we can take a bird's eye view of the cone:

Note that CC is the centroid of equilateral triangle EXYEXY. Also, since all of the medians of an equilateral triangle are also altitudes, we want to find two-thirds of the altitude from EE to XYXY; this is because medians cut each other into a 22 to 11 ratio. This equilateral triangle has a side length of 2r2r, therefore it has an altitude of length r3r \sqrt{3}; two thirds of this is 2r33\frac{2r \sqrt{3}}{3}, so EC=2r33.EC = \frac{2r \sqrt{3}}{3}.

To evaluate AEAE in terms of rr, we will extend OE\overline{OE} past point OO to AB\overline{AB} at point FF.AEF\triangle AEF is similar to ACB\triangle ACB. Also, AOAO is the angle bisector of EAB\angle EAB. Therefore, by the angle bisector theorem, OEOF=AEAF=513\frac{OE}{OF} = \frac{AE}{AF} = \frac{5}{13}. Also, OE=rOE = r, so rOF=513\frac{r}{OF} = \frac{5}{13}, so OF=13r5OF = \frac{13r}{5}. This means thatAE=5EF12=5(OE+OF)12=5(r+13r5)12=18r12=3r2.AE = \frac{5 \cdot EF}{12} = \frac{5 \cdot (OE + OF)}{12} = \frac{5 \cdot (r + \frac{13r}{5})}{12} = \frac{18r}{12} = \frac{3r}{2}.
We have that EC=2r33EC = \frac{2r \sqrt{3}}{3} and that AE=3r2AE = \frac{3r}{2}, so AC=EC+AE=2r33+3r2=4r3+9r6AC = EC + AE = \frac{2r \sqrt{3}}{3} + \frac{3r}{2} = \frac{4r \sqrt{3} + 9r}{6}. We also were given that AC=5AC = 5. Therefore, we have
4r3+9r6=5.\frac{4r \sqrt{3} + 9r}{6} = 5.
This is a simple linear equation in terms of rr. We can solve for rr to get r=(B) 9040311.r = \boxed{\textbf{(B)}\ \frac{90-40\sqrt{3}}{11}}.
~ihatemath123

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

Source: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.