Circles upon circles?
It takes four 1x1 squares to cover a 2x2 square:
It takes four equilateral triangles with side length 1 to make an equilateral triangle of side length 2:
How many unit circles does it take to cover a circle with radius 2?
Note : The unit circles can overlap, and go beyond the boundary of the larger circle as depicted in these two figures: (These pictures are for illustrative purposes only, and include a smaller central circle with a radius < 2)
Image credit : http://mathworld.wolfram.com
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1 solution
It can be done as follows:
And you can't do it with fewer than seven circles, since you need exactly six to cover the circumference, and one to cover the hole left over in the middle.
So you need 7 unit circles all together.