Draw 3 circles that are tangent to each other, and which are also tangent to a line. Draw a unit circle tangent to the three other circles. What is the distance from the center of the unit circle to the line?
1, of course: http://lunkwill.org/tmp/circle_silliness.png Although if you meant 3 /distinct/ circles, then it's 0: http://lunkwill.org/tmp/circle_silliness2.png -J If you are drawing three circles and a line, all externally tangent, then one could draw a circle in the space between the three circles that is also externally tangent to those three circles. If one assumes that this smallest circle has unit radius, one might be able to find the distance to the line, using, e.g., Descarte's Theorem. http://www.answers.com/topic/descartes-theorem --Bill