Ellipse packing

You’ve heard of circle packing… Well this week’s Riddler Classic is about ellipse packing!

This week, try packing three ellipses with a major axis of length 2 and a minor axis of length 1 into a larger ellipse with the same aspect ratio. What is the smallest such larger ellipse you can find? Specifically, how long is its major axis?

Extra credit: Instead of three smaller ellipses, what about other numbers of ellipses?

My solution:
[Show Solution]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *