1992 AHSME Problems/Problem 27
Problem
A circle of radius has chords
of length
and
of length 7. When
and
are extended through
and
, respectively, they intersect at
, which is outside of the circle. If
and
, then
Solution
Applying Power of a Point on , we find that
and thus
. Observing that
and that
, we conclude that
is a
right triangle with right angle at
. Thus,
and triangle
is also right. Using that fact that the circumcircle of a right triangle has its diameter equal to the hypotenuse, we compute using the Pythagorean Theorem
. From here we see that
. The answer is thus
.
See also
1992 AHSME (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | ||
Preceded by Problem 26 |
Followed by Problem 28 | |
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