Three spheres of radii are placed on a flat table, tangent to each other. We want to place a tiny sphere in between them that is tangent to each of the three spheres, as well as the table. What is the radius of this tiny sphere?
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As we can see here , Descartes' Circle Theorem can be generalised to n dimensions. This is Soddy-Gosset theorem:
We can consider the plane as a sphere of infinite radius (i.e. 0 curvature) and simply apply Soddy-Gosset theorem for n = 3 :
3 ( i = 1 ∑ 5 k i 2 ) = ( i = 1 ∑ 5 k i ) 2 ⇒ 3 { ( 5 1 ) 2 + ( 7 1 ) 2 + ( 1 0 1 ) 2 + ( 0 ) 2 + ( r 1 ) 2 } = ( 5 1 + 7 1 + 1 0 1 + 0 + r 1 ) 2 ⇔ 3 ( 9 8 0 6 9 + r 2 1 ) = ( 7 0 3 1 + r 1 ) 2 ⇔ 3 7 r 2 − 2 1 7 0 r + 4 9 0 0 = 0 ⇔ r ≈ 2 . 3 5 2 4 or r ≈ 5 6 . 2 9 6 Accepted solution for our tiny sphere, r ≈ 2 . 3 5 2 4 .
(Hosam, the title of your problem is a real spoiler!)