High School Circle tangent to two lines and another circle

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The discussion focuses on finding the center of a circle tangent to two perpendicular lines and another circle in OpenSCAD. The problem involves determining the coordinates (x1, y1) of the tangent circle, given its radius r and the lines at x=a and y=b. The user realizes that the distance from the origin to the center of the tangent circle must equal the sum of the radii. A quadratic equation is derived from the tangent conditions, leading to a solution for the radius R of the tangent circle. Ultimately, the center coordinates can be calculated using the derived expression for R.
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TL;DR
Find center of a circle tangent to perpendicular lines x=a and y=b, and also tangent to a circle of radius r at the origin.
I'm trying to solve this for a model I'm making in OpenSCAD.

Given a circle of radius r centered on the origin, and two perpendicular lines at x=a and y=b, where is the center (x1,y1) of a circle that is tangent to both lines and the centered circle?

Here's a picture:
1708674575479.png


I thought it would be easy, like solving for a circle that intersects 3 points, but there's something I'm not getting here. It's been 4 decades since I had to solve problems like this.

I know that the distance between (0,0) and (x1,y1) should be the sum of the two radii. I could solve it iteratively, but it feels like there should be a closed-form solution here.
 
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You have three unknowns, ##x_1, y_1, r_1## and three equations from the three tangent conditions. You will need to solve a quadratic equation.
 
Thanks, I believe I figured it out.

From the diagram, I have

##x_1^2+y_1^2 = (r+R)^2##

where ##R## is the radius of the unknown circle. I also know that ##x_1=a+R## and ##y_1=b-R##. That means

##(a+R)^2 + (b-R)^2=(r+R)^2##

and I have a quadratic expression with one unknown, ##R##. That can be solved by the quadratic equation, and I get this:

##R=b-a+r \pm \sqrt{2}\sqrt{(r-a)(b+r)}##

With that I can solve for ##(x_1,y_1)##.
 
Here is a little puzzle from the book 100 Geometric Games by Pierre Berloquin. The side of a small square is one meter long and the side of a larger square one and a half meters long. One vertex of the large square is at the center of the small square. The side of the large square cuts two sides of the small square into one- third parts and two-thirds parts. What is the area where the squares overlap?

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