Notes
three circles in a rectangle solution

Three Circles in a Rectangle

Three Circles in a Rectangle

The circles each have radius 11. What’s the area of the rectangle?

Solution by Similar Triangles

Three circles in a rectangle labelled

With the points labelled as above, triangles OBAO B A and OCAO C A are congruent and so ACA C is the same length as ABA B, which is 55. Triangles ODCO D C and ADBA D B are both right-angled and share the angle at DD, so are similar.

Let aa be the length of CDC D and bb of ODO D. The lengths of ODCO D C are, from shortest to longest, 11, aa, bb and of ADBA D B are 55, 1+b1 + b, 5+a5 + a. So 1+b=5a1 + b = 5 a and 5+a=5b5 + a = 5 b. Solving this gives a=512a = \frac{5}{12} and b=1312b = \frac{13}{12}. This means that BDB D has length 2512\frac{25}{12}.

Triangle AFEA F E is also similar to ADBA D B. The length of AEA E is 66, so the length of FEF E is 65\frac{6}{5}ths of the length of DBD B, so is 52\frac{5}{2}. The area of the rectangle is the 6×52=156 \times \frac{5}{2} = 15.