2002 AIME II Problems/Problem 15
Problem
Circles and
intersect at two points, one of which is
, and the product of the radii is
. The x-axis and the line
, where
, are tangent to both circles. It is given that
can be written in the form
, where
,
, and
are positive integers,
is not divisible by the square of any prime, and
and
are relatively prime. Find
.
Solution 1
Let the smaller angle between the -axis and the line
be
. Note that the centers of the two circles lie on the angle bisector of the angle between the
-axis and the line
. Also note that if
is on said angle bisector, we have that
. Let
, for convenience. Therefore if
is on the angle bisector, then
. Now let the centers of the two relevant circles be
and
for some positive reals
and
. These two circles are tangent to the
-axis, so the radii of the circles are
and
respectively. We know that the point
is a point on both circles, so we have that
Expanding these and manipulating terms gives
It follows that and
are the roots of the quadratic
It follows from Vieta's Formulas that the product of the roots of this quadratic is , but we were also given that the product of the radii was 68. Therefore
, or
. Note that the half-angle formula for tangents is
Therefore
Solving for gives that
. It then follows that
.
It then follows that . Therefore
,
, and
. The desired answer is then
.
Solution 2 (Alcumus)
Let and
be the radii of the circles. Then the centers of the circles are of the form
and
for the same constant
since the two centers are collinear with the origin. Since
lies on both circles,
where
represents either radius. Expanding, we get
We are told the product of the circles is 68, so by Vieta's formulas,
Hence,
and
Since the circle is tangent to the line the distance from the center
to the line is
We can write
as
so from the distance formula,
Squaring both sides, we get
so
Since
we can divide both sides by r, to get
Then
so
Since
Hence,
See also
2002 AIME II (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | ||
Preceded by Problem 14 |
Followed by Last Question | |
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 | ||
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