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    How can I solve this question if the distance between the 2 circles was not given?

    Module 2 Day 11 Your Turn Part 1
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    • The Blade DancerT
      The Blade Dancer M0★ M1★ M2★ M3★ M4 M5
      last edited by debbie

      There was something similar in the weekly challenge. How can I solve this question if the distance between the 2 circles was not given?

      The Blade Dancer
      League of Legends, Valorant: Harlem Charades (#NA1)
      Discord: Change nickname if gay#7585

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      • divinedolphinD
        divinedolphin M0★ M1★ M2★ M3★ M4★ M5★ M6★
        last edited by

        I don't think you can solve it without the distance between the two circles.

        👕👕👕👕👕👕👕👕👕👕🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌

        debbieD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • debbieD
          debbie ADMIN M0★ M1 M5 @divinedolphin
          last edited by

          @divinedolphin

          The cool trick here is to visualize a large right triangle, \(\bigtriangleup FDE,\) which you can get by sliding the tangent line \(\overline{AB}\) over until it touches the center of the smaller circle:

          First, it's helpful to remember that the question states that the circles are \(9\) units apart at their closest point. This is equivalent to the yellow segment highlighted down below.

          d1097186-1deb-423a-a3af-e675af4c8d0a-image.png

          Conveniently, the line connecting the two circles' centers, \(\overline{DE},\) is just this segment of length \(9\) plus the radius of \(6\) and the radius of \(2,\) so this line \(DE = 6 + 9 + 2 = 17.\)

          Now we don't even need to know the Pythagorean Theorem, since we know of a right triangle with a leg of \(8\) and a hypotenuse of \(17:\) it's the \(8 - 15 - 17\) right triangle! This means the other leg equal \(15,\) which happens to be the length that we want!

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