The Wikipedia article on Steiner constructions mentions it, but doesn’t explain it, and the source linked is a book I don’t have. This has come up in a practical project.
The Wikipedia article on Steiner constructions mentions it, but doesn’t explain it, and the source linked is a book I don’t have. This has come up in a practical project.
For a variation on this with fewer tangents (from A. S. Smogorzhevskii’s The Ruler In Geometrical Constructions):
The issue, of course, is that any tangent you draw (without other circles, lines, or tools) is going to be approximate, and so the center will also be approximate. Every solution for this that I found just assumes accurate tangents, or parallel lines, or whatever, but I don’t see a way to get those (I say, having only browsed through the topic briefly) when these two circles and a straightedge are all you have to work with. If that’s not a big deal in your practical application, cool.
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** I’m shortcutting, here. The long version is to first draw two line segments, one that uses the smaller circle’s tangent points (2) as endpoints, and one that uses the intersections on the larger circle (3) as endpoints. Because the two circles are concentric, these segments are parallel and centered on one another, so you end up with an isosceles trapezoid. You then draw its diagonals to get its midpoint.
I’m still curious about the no-tangents solution, but for my specific application I could probably physically rest a straightedge or flat plane on the circle somehow.