Lopsidedness

Geometry Level 5

Consider three circles A A , B B and C C , each passing through the points ( 1 , 0 ) (-1,0) and ( 1 , 0 ) (1,0) . Each circle is cut into three regions by the other two circles. Let the lopsidedness of a circle be the area of the circle's largest region divided by the area of the circle.

Let p > 0 p>0 . Now let A A pass through ( 1 , 2 p ) (1,2p) , B B pass through ( 0 , 1 ) (0,1) , and C C pass through ( 1 , 2 p ) (-1,-2p) . If the value of p p minimising the lopsidedness of circle B B satisfies the equation

( p 2 + 1 ) arctan ( 1 p ) = p + π K (p^2+1) \arctan \left( \dfrac{1}{p} \right) = p+\dfrac{\pi}{K}

find K K .


This is a slightly rephrased version of a question part that appeared in an Oxford Mathematics Admissions Test.


The answer is 6.

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2 solutions

Jesse Nieminen
Aug 23, 2016

Clearly B B is an unit circle with center at origin.

Since every chord is orthogonal to the radius, A A must pass through point ( 0 , p ) (0,p) and C C must pass through point ( 0 , p ) (0,-p) .
Now, we can clearly see that A A and C C are reflections of each other (by x x -axis). Now, B B is divided into 3 3 regions.

We notice that lopsidedness is minimized when all regions have an equal area.
Such p p exist because when p p goes from 0 0 to \infty , the combined area of the segments of A A and C C which form one of the regions goes from the area of B B to 0 0 .

Now since we want to have equal area in all regions, we must have area of B = 3 × combined area of the segments \text{area of B} = 3 \times \text{combined area of the segments} .

Area of B B is clearly equal to π \pi and area of the segment = area of the sector area of the isosceles triangle in the sector \text{area of the segment} = \text{area of the sector} - \text{area of the isosceles triangle in the sector}

Area of the triangle equals 2 × p 2 = p \dfrac{2 \times p}{2} = p (Clearly p p is the height of the isosceles triangle and 2 2 is the base since it is the chord) and
the area of the sector equals 2 × arctan ( 1 p ) 2 π × π × p 2 + 1 2 = arctan ( 1 p ) × ( p 2 + 1 ) \dfrac{2 \times \arctan\left(\dfrac1p\right)}{2\pi} \times \pi \times \sqrt{p^2 + 1 }^2 = \arctan\left(\dfrac1p\right) \times \left(p^2 + 1\right) .
( tan α = opposite adjacent \tan{\alpha} = \dfrac{\text{opposite}}{\text{adjacent}} in a right triangle, isosceles triangle can be divided into 2 2 identical right triangles)

Thus, the area of the segments combined is 2 × ( arctan ( 1 p ) × ( p 2 + 1 ) p ) = π 3 2 \times \left(\arctan\left(\dfrac1p\right) \times \left(p^2 + 1\right) - p\right) = \dfrac\pi3 which implies that ( p 2 + 1 ) arctan ( 1 p ) = p + π 6 \left(p^2 + 1\right) \arctan\left(\dfrac1p\right) = p + \dfrac\pi6 .

Hence, K = 6 K = \boxed{6} .

If someone wants to show me a good tool for making and image to clarify this solution, please leave a comment.

Arjen Vreugdenhil
Sep 15, 2016

It is obvious that circle B is the unit circle, with area π \pi . Circles A and C are bigger and lie symmetrically around the origin:

For sufficiently small p p values, the yellow region will be largest, but eventually the other two regions will be bigger. Thus the desired minimum is reached when the three areas are equally large, i.e. the area of the yellow region is π / 3 \pi/3 .

We focus on the top half of this region, which should have area π / 6 \pi/6 . The three given points for circle C lie on the three vertices of a rectangle; therefore the circle also goes through its fourth vertex, and the center of the circle coincides with the center of the rectangle; it is the point ( 0 , p ) (0, -p) . Applying Pythagoras shows that the radius of circle C is R C = 1 + p 2 R_C = \sqrt{1 + p^2} .

The yellow area is found by subtracting the area of a circle sector (the blue lines) minus the area of a triangle.

The area of the triangle is 1 2 2 p = p \tfrac12\cdot 2 \cdot p = p .

The area of the circle sector is π R C 2 2 θ / 36 0 \pi R_C^2 \cdot 2\theta/360^\circ , and we see readily that tan θ = 1 / p \tan\theta = 1/p . Thus

yellow area = π R C 2 2 θ 2 π p = ( 1 + p 2 ) ( arctan 1 p ) p ; \text{yellow area} = \pi R_C^2 \cdot \frac{2\theta}{2\pi} - p = (1 + p^2)\left(\arctan \frac 1p\right) - p;

since the yellow area is π / 6 \pi/6 , this becomes

( 1 + p 2 ) ( arctan 1 p ) = p + π 6 , (1 + p^2)\left(\arctan \frac 1p\right) = p + \frac{\pi}6, showing that K = 6 \boxed{K = 6} .

Awesome. Thanks for adding pictures too : ) :)

Michael Fuller - 4 years, 9 months ago

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