Art of Problem Solving

2010 AMC 10B Problems/Problem 20

Problem

Two circles lie outside regular hexagon $ABCDEF$. The first is tangent to $\overbar{AB}$ (Error compiling LaTeX. Unknown error_msg), and the second is tangent to $\overbar{DE}$ (Error compiling LaTeX. Unknown error_msg). Both are tangent to lines $BC$ and $FA$. What is the ratio of the area of the second circle to that of the first circle?

$\textbf{(A)}\ 18 \qquad  \textbf{(B)}\ 27 \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ 36 \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ 81 \qquad \textbf{(E)}\ 108$

Solution

A good diagram is very helpful.

The first circle is in red, the second in blue. With this diagram, we can see that the first circle is inscribed in equilateral triangle $GBA$ while the second circle is inscribed in $GKJ$. From this, it's evident that the ratio of the blue area to the red area is equal to the ratio of the areas $\triangle GKJ$ to $\triangle GBA$

Since the ratio of areas is equal to the square of the ratio of lengths, we know our final answer is $\left(\frac{GK}{GB}\right)^2$. From the diagram, we can see that this is $9^2=\boxed{\textbf{(D)}\ 81}$

See Also

2010 AMC 10B (ProblemsAnswer KeyResources)
Preceded by
Problem 19
Followed by
Problem 21
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
All AMC 10 Problems and Solutions

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