2003 AMC 12A Problems/Problem 17
Problem
Square has sides of length , and is the midpoint of . A circle with radius and center intersects a circle with radius and center at points and . What is the distance from to ?
Solution 1
Let be the origin. is the point and is the point . We are given the radius of the quarter circle and semicircle as and , respectively, so their equations, respectively, are:
Subtract the second equation from the first:
Then substitute:
Thus and making and .
The first value of is obviously referring to the x-coordinate of the point where the circles intersect at the origin, , so the second value must be referring to the x coordinate of . Since is the y-axis, the distance to it from is the same as the x-value of the coordinate of , so the distance from to is
Solution 2
Note that is merely a reflection of over . Call the intersection of and . Drop perpendiculars from and to , and denote their respective points of intersection by and . We then have , with a scale factor of 2. Thus, we can find and double it to get our answer. With some analytical geometry, we find that , implying that .
Solution 3
As in Solution 2, draw in and and denote their intersection point . Next, drop a perpendicular from to and denote the foot as . as they are both radii and similarly so is a kite and by a well-known theorem.
Pythagorean theorem gives us . Clearly by angle-angle and by Hypotenuse Leg. Manipulating similar triangles gives us
See Also
The problems on this page are copyrighted by the Mathematical Association of America's American Mathematics Competitions.