Revenge of the impossible Sangaku

Geometry Level 3

Every polygon in this diagram is regular and has a side length of 20 and we have 6 inscribed circles. We denote : - P the radius one purple circle - B the radius of one blue circle - Y the radius of one yellow circle (the small one!) - G the radius of one green circle and - R the radius of one red circle

P+B+Y-G-R can be expressed as : a a + b a \sqrt{a+b\sqrt{a}} -b a \sqrt{a} a + b a \sqrt{a+b\sqrt{a}} +2ab+2b a \sqrt{a} -ac c \sqrt{c}

QUESTION : Find a+b+c


The answer is 10.

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1 solution

Chris Lewis
Mar 4, 2020

I wish we could flag a problem as "brilliant", because this one definitely is.

The workings get rather messy, so the following is just a sketch of how I found each of P , B , Y , G , R P,B,Y,G,R . For clarity, let the common side have length s = 20 s=20 (and note that this is also the radius of the circumscribed circle). Working from the top...


Yellow circle \color{#CEBB00}{\text{Yellow circle}}

This circle's diameter is the height of the circle segment cut off by the hexagon; that is 2 Y = s ( 1 cos 3 0 ) 2Y=s \left(1-\cos 30^{\circ} \right)


Red circle \color{#D61F06}{\text{Red circle}}

The diameter of this circle is the height of the hexagon minus the height of the pentagon; so 2 R = 2 s cos 3 0 1 2 s tan 7 2 2R=2s \cos 30^{\circ} - \frac12 s \tan 72^{\circ}


Green circle \color{#20A900}{\text{Green circle}}

The first tricky one. If we extend the side of the square that is tangent to this circle, we form a triangle Δ \Delta with part of the top two sides of the pentagon. The green circle is the incircle of Δ \Delta .

Δ \Delta is clearly isosceles, with angles 3 6 , 3 6 , 10 8 36^{\circ},36^{\circ},108^{\circ} . Its height is the height of the pentagon minus the height of the square. This is enough to uniquely define Δ \Delta , and so we can find its inradius.

After some ugly algebra, and using standard trigonometric values for angles in a pentagon, we find G = 2 + 5 + 2 5 2 5 s G=\frac{-2 + \sqrt{5 + 2 \sqrt5}}{2 \sqrt5} s


Blue circle(s) \color{#3D99F6}{\text{Blue circle(s)}}

We use a similar trick for this one. The blue circle is the incircle of a 30 60 9 0 30-60-90^{\circ} triangle, whose longer leg is s s .

A bit more algebra, and B = 1 2 s ( 1 1 3 ) B=\frac12 s \left(1-\frac{1}{\sqrt3} \right)


Purple circle \color{magenta}{\text{Purple circle}}

This one is just the incircle of an equilateral triangle with side s s , so P = 3 6 s P=\frac{\sqrt3}{6} s .


Putting all these together, and following the required form of the solution, we find P + B + Y G R = 5 5 + 2 5 2 5 5 + 2 5 + 2 5 2 + 2 2 5 5 3 3 P+B+Y-G-R=5\sqrt{5+2\sqrt5}- 2\sqrt5 \sqrt{5+2\sqrt5} + 2\cdot 5 \cdot 2 + 2\cdot 2\sqrt5 - 5 \cdot 3 \sqrt3 , that is a = 5 a=5 , b = 2 b=2 and c = 3 c=3 so that a + b + c = 10 a+b+c=\boxed{10} .

Thank you so much for posting a solution to my second problem on brillant. And thank you for your comment, i ll try to create more problems but it takes me a lot of time i need to improve

Valentin Duringer - 1 year, 3 months ago

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