In
geometry
Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...
, the Woo circles, introduced by Peter Y. Woo, are a set of
infinitely many Archimedean circles.
Construction
Form an
arbelos
In geometry, an arbelos is a plane region bounded by three semicircles with three apexes such that each corner of each semicircle is shared with one of the others (connected), all on the same side of a straight line (the ''baseline'') that conta ...
with the two inner
semicircle
In mathematics (and more specifically geometry), a semicircle is a one-dimensional locus of points that forms half of a circle. It is a circular arc that measures 180° (equivalently, radians, or a half-turn). It only has one line of symmetr ...
s
tangent
In geometry, the tangent line (or simply tangent) to a plane curve at a given point is, intuitively, the straight line that "just touches" the curve at that point. Leibniz defined it as the line through a pair of infinitely close points o ...
at point ''C''. Let ''m'' denote any
nonnegative
In mathematics, the sign of a real number is its property of being either positive, negative, or 0. Depending on local conventions, zero may be considered as having its own unique sign, having no sign, or having both positive and negative sign. ...
real number
In mathematics, a real number is a number that can be used to measure a continuous one- dimensional quantity such as a duration or temperature. Here, ''continuous'' means that pairs of values can have arbitrarily small differences. Every re ...
. Draw two circles, with
radii ''m'' times the radii of the smaller two arbelos semicircles, centered on the arbelos ground line, also tangent to each other at point ''C'' and with radius ''m'' times the radius of the corresponding small arbelos arc. Any circle centered on the
Schoch line and externally
tangent to the circles is a Woo circle.
[
]
See also
*
Schoch circles
References
Arbelos
Circles
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