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Rodrigo A. Pérez
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Given two disjoint disks of different radii, find the intersection of their common external tangents. For lack of a better name, call this the h-center of the pair (h- for homothety?).

Problem: Given three mutually disjoint disks, the h-centers of the three pairs are colinear.

The nicest solution involves adding one dimension and inflating the disks to balls (with centers in the original plane $\Pi$). The pairs of tangents become full-fledged cones with vertices in $\Pi$, and the proof is obtained by studying a plane tangent to all three balls. It is tangent to all three cones, so it contains their three vertices, but it also intersects $\Pi$ on a straight line :)

Rodrigo A. Pérez
  • 3.1k
  • 2
  • 41
  • 47