CIRCLE • CIRCLE • LINE

Two Circles With Inner Contact, Line Outside The Circle

Number of solutions: 2

GeoGebra construction

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Steps

  1. Given two circles tangent at point T and a line that lies outside them.
  2. Draw a line h that passes through the centres of the two circles
  3. Create an arbitrary point P through which we draw a perpendicular line i to the given line. Find point G - the intersection of lines i & h.
  4. Draw a circle e centered at G with radius |GP|. Label the intersections of the circle and the lines i & h with different letters (H, I, J).
  5. Draw a line k passing through the points H & P.
  6. Draw a line j parallel to the line k passing through the tangent point T.
  7. Find the intersection K of line j and the given line. Draw the perpendicular line l that passes through K. The intersection of lines h & l is the center of the first solution.
  8. To find the second solution draw a line m that passes through points I & P.
  9. Draw a line p that is parallel to line m and also passes through the tangent point T.
  10. Find point L - the intersection of lines h & p. Then draw a line q through this point perpendicular to the given line. The intersection of lines h & q is the center of the second solution.