Question

Circle P and O with a common external tangent Segment AB.OA=8 PB=2What is AB?

Answer 1

Angles made between the radius and the tangent to a circle is a right angle. This is illustrated in the schematic below:

We now use Pythagoras to solve for AB where we have a right angle of AB as adjacent, 6 and 10 as opposite and hypothenuse respectively.

Hypothenuse, h is given as

`a\text{ = }\sqrt[]{h^2-o^2}`