Problem
2001 AMC 12 Problem 18
A circle centered at A with a radius of 1 and a circle centered at B with a radius of 4 are externally tangent. A third circle is tangent to the first two and to one of their common external tangents as shown. The radius of the third circle is
![[asy] unitsize(0.75cm); pair A=(0,1), B=(4,4); dot(A); dot(B); draw( circle(A,1) ); draw( circle(B,4) ); draw( (-1.5,0)--(8.5,0) ); draw( A -- (A+(-1,0)) ); label("$1$", A -- (A+(-1,0)), N ); draw( B -- (B+(4,0)) ); label("$4$", B -- (B+(4,0)), N ); label("$A$",A,E); label("$B$",B,W); filldraw( circle( (12/9,4/9), 4/9 ), lightgray, black ); dot( (12/9,4/9) ); [/asy]](/static/aops/e0340e3581aab9d635bcf2dca6b71152f8fa5290.png)
\text{(A) }\frac {1}{3} \qquad \text{(B) }\frac {2}{5} \qquad \text{(C) }\frac {5}{12} \qquad \text{(D) }\frac {4}{9} \qquad \text{(E) }\frac {1}{2}
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