<p>Hello, sorry it is an unusual post, but i need some help. On a recent math team problem at our school, many of the kids felt the answer was something, but it turned out to be something completely different, and I am having trouble understanding why the correct answer is correct, here is the problem, I hope you could help explain it:</p>
<p>The circumference of the larger crcle is two times that of a smaller circle, if the smaller circle is rolled around the edge of the larger circle, how many rotations does the smaller circle make. The imgae that was with it was two circles side by side, one smaller than the other, they were tangent to each other, and they were not inside eachother. So when rolling it has to go around the outside of the larger.</p>
<p>Here is what I did, but was wrong: C1 = 2(PI)r C2 = (C1)/2 = (PI)r
(C1)/(C2) = (2PIr)/(PIr) = 2. The correct answer is supposed to be 3, why?, thanks for your help.</p>
<p>just to add something to it, my bc calc teacher actually cut out circles for this, and it does come out to 3, but she didn't know how to do it mathematically, but the answer definately is 3, if anyone knows why please reply</p>
<p>if anyone knows the math behind this, please intrigue us, b/c this problem is incredibly weird, and if you make a scale model yourself you will see that it is 3, but WHY, i'm going crazy over this</p>
<p>According to the information you gave.. the answer IS 2. It cannot be 3. Whatever your BC calc teacher did to show that the answer was three was wrong.</p>