Draw a circle of radius 3,958.8 miles

Question

Using the same centre draw another circle of radius 4,018.8 miles

Draw a tangent on the inner circle (point A) and extend it until it meets the outer circle (point B)

What is the distance AB

Would love to know the answer and how to calculate

Thanks

Rob

Answer 1

The distance AB is 60 miles. To calculate this, you can use the Pythagorean Theorem. Let r1 be the radius of the inner circle (3,958.8 miles) and r2 be the radius of the outer circle (4,018.8 miles). Then the distance AB is equal to the square root of (r2^2 - r1^2). So, in this case, AB = sqrt((4,018.8^2) - (3,958.8^2)) = sqrt(16,072,844 - 15,664,844) = sqrt(408,000) = 60 miles.

Answer 2

Thanks but unfortunately the automated reply , amazing though it is has missed the target. It would seem that it failed to comprehend the tangent part of the question. I have no idea how to calculate this myself but was expecting the answer to be several hundreds of miles.

Hopefully someone will be along soon to sort me out.

Thanks

Rob

Answer 3

As the bot said,

AB^2 + 3958.8^2 = 4018.8^2
AB = 691.85

as is often the case, the bot starts out okay, but then can't do simple math

Answer 4

Many thanks

Rob