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 -b +2ab+2b -ac
QUESTION : Find a+b+c
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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 . For clarity, let the common side have length s = 2 0 (and note that this is also the radius of the circumscribed circle). Working from the top...
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 ∘ )
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 ∘ − 2 1 s tan 7 2 ∘
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 with part of the top two sides of the pentagon. The green circle is the incircle of Δ .
Δ is clearly isosceles, with angles 3 6 ∘ , 3 6 ∘ , 1 0 8 ∘ . Its height is the height of the pentagon minus the height of the square. This is enough to uniquely define Δ , 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
Blue circle(s)
We use a similar trick for this one. The blue circle is the incircle of a 3 0 − 6 0 − 9 0 ∘ triangle, whose longer leg is s .
A bit more algebra, and B = 2 1 s ( 1 − 3 1 )
Purple circle
This one is just the incircle of an equilateral triangle with side s , so P = 6 3 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 , that is a = 5 , b = 2 and c = 3 so that a + b + c = 1 0 .