Spheres within another sphere, how many more spheres?

Geometry Level 4

This problem's question: **How many more spheres can be added?"

There are additional conditions and definitions. A sphere is the boundary of a closed ball. There are two spheres within the larger sphere. The sum of the radii of the two interior spheres does not have to equal the radius of the exterior sphere. All of these spheres have positive, finite radii and are mutually tangent (in contact). The added spheres must be tangent to all of the original three spheres and except for the first added sphere, must be tangent to at least one of the added spheres. Tangency is the only form of contact permitted by any of the spheres, original or added. Intrusion into the interior of another sphere is not permitted.

This is a permissible nesting of the original spheres.


The answer is 6.

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1 solution

This is not an original problem. It has been derived from several sources:

  • Soddy's Hexlet
  • Weisstein, Eric W. "Hexlet." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Hexlet.html
  • From [Showing and Hiding {Spheres XI)](https://theinnerframe.wordpress.com/tag/soddys-theorem/]

The proof by inversion of this is one of my favourite proofs.

Chris Lewis - 2 years ago

Do you feel that It would be reasonable to put up a few more closely related problems? Or, would that be to repetitious?

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I think there are quite a few diverse, interesting and surprising ideas around Soddy hexlets, so I would say go for it!

Chris Lewis - 2 years ago

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