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Geometry Difficulty 3.4 AMC 10/12 Find the answer

Circles with radii 11, 22, and 33 are mutually externally tangent. What is the area of the triangle determined by the points of tangency?

Pick one

Solution

Figure (Asymptote source)
unitsize(.5cm); defaultpen(linewidth(.8pt)); dotfactor=4;  pair A=(0,0), B=(3,0), C=(0,4);  dot (A); dot (B); dot (C); draw(A--B); draw(A--C); draw(B--C);   draw(Circle(A,1)); draw(Circle(B,2)); draw(Circle(C,3));

The centers of these circles form a 3-4-5 triangle, which has an area equal to 6.
The areas of the three triangles determined by the center and the two points of tangency of each circle are, using Triangle Area by Sine,
12111=12\frac{1}{2} \cdot 1 \cdot 1 \cdot 1 = \frac{1}{2}
122245=85\frac{1}{2} \cdot 2 \cdot 2 \cdot \frac{4}{5} = \frac{8}{5}
123335=2710\frac{1}{2} \cdot 3 \cdot 3 \cdot \frac{3}{5} = \frac{27}{10}
which add up to 4.84.8. The area we're looking for is the large 3-4-5 triangle minus the three smaller triangles, or 64.8=1.2=65(D)6 - 4.8 = 1.2 = \frac{6}{5} \rightarrow \boxed{(D)}.

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