In the figure above, we have a large blue circle of radius 1.
In this circle, we draw 2 equal red circles that are tangent to each other and to the large circle.
In each of these smaller red circles, we draw 3 equal blue circles in the same fashion.
In each of these smaller blue circles, we draw 4 equal red circles, and so on.
Compute the area of the red region.
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If we continue drawing circles, we are going to obtain at the n t h step n ! circles with radius n ! 1 each. Thus, the total area of n ! circles is : n ! × ( n ! ) 2 π = n ! π
The desired area is obtained by adding the areas in step 2 , then subtracting those at step 3 , then adding the areas at step 4 and then subtracting those at step 5 and so forth.
To solve it : 2 ! π − 3 ! π + 4 ! π − . . . = π ( 0 ! 1 − 1 ! 1 + 2 ! 1 − 3 ! 1 ) + . . . = π × e − 1 = e π