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algebra senior
Problem
A collection of circles in the upper half-plane, all tangent to the -axis, is constructed in layers as follows. Layer consists of two circles of radii and that are externally tangent. For , the circles in are ordered according to their points of tangency with the -axis. For every pair of consecutive circles in this order, a new circle is constructed externally tangent to each of the two circles in the pair. Layer consists of the circles constructed in this way. Let , and for every circle denote by its radius. What is
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
Solution
Let the two circles from be of radius and , with . Let the circle of radius be circle and the circle of radius be circle . Now, let the circle of have radius . Let this circle be circle . Draw the radii of the three circles down to the common tangential line and connect the radii. Draw two lines parallel to the common tangential line of the two layers intersecting the center point of circle and the center point of circle . Now, we have right triangles with a line of common length (The two parallel lines). Using the pythagorean theorem, we get the formula Now we solve for . Square both sides, use the identity and simplify: Now, let's change this into a function to clean things up: Let's begin to rewrite the sum we want to find in terms of the radii of the circles, call this : Using this, we can find the sum of some layers: , , and : This is interesting, we have that the sum of Layer 0 and Layer 1 is equal to twice of Layer 0. If we continue and find the sum of layers 0, 1 and 2, we see it is equal to . This is getting very interesting, there must be some pattern. First of all, we should observe that finding of a circle is equivalent to adding up those of the 2 larger circles to construct the smaller one. Second, upon further observation, we can draw out the layers. When we're finding the next layer, we can split the current layers across the center, so that each half includes the center circle . Now, if we were to find , we notice we are doubling the current sum and including the center circle twice. So, the recursive sum would be . So, applying this new formula, we get
Final answer
D