Problem
2015 AMC 12A Problem 25
A collection of circles in the upper half-plane, all tangent to the x-axis, is constructed in layers as follows. Layer L_0 consists of two circles of radii 70^2 and 73^2 that are externally tangent. For k\ge1, the circles in \bigcup_{j=0}^{k-1}L_j are ordered according to their points of tangency with the x-axis. For every pair of consecutive circles in this order, a new circle is constructed externally tangent to each of the two circles in the pair. Layer L_k consists of the 2^{k-1} circles constructed in this way. Let S=\bigcup_{j=0}^{6}L_j, and for every circle C denote by r(C) its radius. What is \sum_{C\in S} \frac{1}{\sqrt{r(C)}}?
\textbf{(A)}\ \frac{286}{35} \qquad\textbf{(B)}\ \frac{583}{70} \qquad\textbf{(C)}\ \frac{715}{73}\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ \frac{143}{14} \qquad\textbf{(E)}\ \frac{1573}{146}
Full credit goes to MAA for authoring these problems. These problems were taken on the AOPS website.
Want to contribute problems and receive full credit? Click here to add your problem!
Please report any issues to us in our Discord server
Go to previous contest problem (SHIFT + Left Arrow)
Problem feedback