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Geometry Level 5

Suppose that two circles of equal radius are drawn within a square such that each is centered on the same diagonal of the square and each is tangent to precisely two sides of the square, as well as to one another at precisely one point.

Next, at each of the two corners not on this diagonal are centered quarter-circles of equal radius, such that they are both tangent at precisely one point to each of the two circles previously drawn.

Let S S be the ratio of the combined areas of the two circles and two quarter-circles to the area of the square. Find 10000 S \lfloor 10000*S \rfloor .


The answer is 8896.

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1 solution

Let r r be the radius of each of the two "whole" circles and R R be the radius of each of the two quarter-circles. Also, without loss of generality, let the square in question be a unit square. Then the combined areas of the circles and quarter-circles will be the desired ratio S S .

Looking first at the diagonal of the square and the two whole circles, we see that the center of each circle is a distance of 2 r \sqrt{2}*r from the nearest corner. So as the centers of the circles are a distance 2 r 2r apart, we have that

2 2 r + 2 r = 2 r = 2 2 2 . 2*\sqrt{2}*r + 2r = \sqrt{2} \Longrightarrow r = \dfrac{2 - \sqrt{2}}{2}.

Now form a right triangle with vertices being the center of one of the whole circles, the center of one of the quarter-circles and the last being the nearest point of tangency of the whole circle to the hypotenuse. The hypotenuse will then have length r + R r + R and the legs will have lengths 1 r 1 - r and r r . By Pythagoras we then have that

( r + R ) 2 = ( 1 r ) 2 + r 2 R = 2 2 2 2 2 . (r + R)^{2} = (1 - r)^{2} + r^{2} \Longrightarrow R = \sqrt{2 - \sqrt{2}} - \dfrac{2 - \sqrt{2}}{2}.

The combined areas of the whole circles and quarter-circles, and hence the desired ratio, will thus be

S = 2 π r 2 + π 2 R 2 = 0.8896629.... S = 2\pi*r^{2} + \dfrac{\pi}{2}R^{2} = 0.8896629.... ,

and so 10000 S = 8896 \lfloor 10000*S \rfloor = \boxed{8896} .

Nice solution. I had taken the radius of the full circle as r and than worked out and got the same answer but missed that it was the ceiling !! My answer was 8897!!!.

Niranjan Khanderia - 6 years, 4 months ago

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So close! Sorry you didn't get credit for solving the problem, since you clearly knew the correct method.

Brian Charlesworth - 6 years, 4 months ago

So good to meet you again Brian, Prof. Khanderia!

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Took basically the same route. Only 'tiled' the square to get a regular octagon to get the smaller angle in the right triangle as 22.5°. Assuming R = 1 gave r = s 1 s . . . s = sin 22.5 ° = 0.6199 r=\frac{s}{1-s} . . . s = \sin 22.5° = 0.6199

Side of square L then became L = r + ( 1 + r ) cos 22.5 ° = 2.1165 L = r + (1+r) \cos 22.5° = 2.1165

Ujjwal Rane - 6 years, 4 months ago

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This is an especially elegant solution, Ujjwal. The 'tiling' approach makes so much sense now that you've drawn it out. Thank you for sharing it. :)

Brian Charlesworth - 6 years, 4 months ago

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Thank you Brian!

Ujjwal Rane - 6 years, 4 months ago

Thanks. It is really nice to see you and the full octagonal. It gives a better insight of the problem. Incidentally, 's' is the vertical side of the filled right-angled triangle with hypotenuse = 1. It took some time for me to realize this.

Niranjan Khanderia - 6 years, 4 months ago

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