Inscribing three balls in a cone, what is the radius ?

Geometry Level pending

A right circular cone has a base radius of 100 , and a height of 200. We want to place three identical balls (spheres) inside the cone such that all three are tangent to the base of the cone, and to each other and also tangent to the curved surface of the cone. What is the radius of each of these balls ? Submit your answer using 3 significant digits.


The answer is 36.1.

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1 solution

Jeremy Galvagni
Aug 18, 2018

Consider a side and top view,

In the side view, we see A B C \triangle ABC with sides A C = 200 AC=200 , B C = 100 BC=100 , and A B = 100 5 AB=100\sqrt{5} the sphere with radius r r center D D is tangent to B C BC and A B AB at E E and F F respectively. Draw D G DG parallel to A B AB then draw G H GH parallel to D F DF then draw D I DI parallel to B C BC .

It's simple to show A B C G D I A G H \triangle ABC \sim \triangle GDI \sim \triangle AGH . Then using proportions G H = r GH=r , A H = 2 r AH=2r , A G = r 5 AG=r\sqrt{5} . Also I C = r IC=r so subtracting A G AG and I C IC from A C AC gives G I = 200 r r 5 GI=200-r-r\sqrt{5} . By similar triangles again D I = 100 1 + 5 2 r DI=100-\frac{1+\sqrt{5}}{2}r

Now we turn our attention to the top view. D I DI is the same as before but this now part of 30 60 90 30-60-90 triangle D I J DIJ . Since D J = r DJ=r , D I = 2 3 r DI=\frac{2}{\sqrt{3}}r

So now we have an equation to solve for r r

100 1 + 5 2 r = 2 3 r 100-\frac{1+\sqrt{5}}{2}r=\frac{2}{\sqrt{3}}r

r = 600 3 + 4 3 + 3 5 36.065479 r=\frac{600}{3+4\sqrt{3}+3\sqrt{5}} \approx \boxed{36.065479}

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