Apologies (I tried so hard!) --- the arcs are centred at the endpoints of the segment, which is tangent to the circle. What I liked about this was that the obvious coordinate geometry sledgehammer just produces a perfectly horrible polynomial equation (at least, it does when I wield it!), despite which there is a genuinely elementary solution lurking which is very simple (once found ...). WFL
Fred wrote:
<< Chris Maslanka (Guardian newspaper, Saturday October 16th 2010) diagrams the following bilaterally symmetric architectural decoration, comprising a small circle surrounded by a pair of larger arcs tangent to it, the latter centred on a line segment also tangent to it; and asks, given the segment has unit length, what radius has the circle?
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_____________________________________________________________________ "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that certain je ne sais quoi." --Peter Schickele
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