Largest Area Triangle in the Vesica Piscis

conic sectionsgeometryoptimizationtriangles

I can place any three points in or on a vesica piscis1. I wish to find the triangle of maximum area. I know the area of the vesica piscis is $(\frac{2π}{3}-\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2})d^2$ (where d is the radius of the circles used to form the vesica piscis) and I know the area of a triangle containing the two points of intersection and a cusp point or a triangle containing two cusp points and a point of intersection has area $\frac{\sqrt{3}}{4}d^2$. Getting a percentage for area coverage of these triangles gives ~35.3%. I believe that there is definitely bigger triangles.

What approaches can I take to find the triangle with the largest area (or if there are multiple, list them all)? I see this article here: Largest area of the triangle that can be inscribed in ellipse, but I am wondering if there is also a more elementary way to do it than to go the Lagrange Multiplier's route. I also see in the answer here (Do Any "Geometrical Inscription Theorems" Exist?) that the three points should lie on the boundary, but I don't know a general method to go about this

Best Answer

EDIT.

I'm inserting here a purely geometrical solution, the original reasoning can be seen at the end.

I'll repeatedly make use of the following result: if we have a line $r$ and an arc of circle $\gamma$, and the point $Q\in\gamma$ which is the farthest from $r$ is not an endpoint of $\gamma$, then the tangent at $Q$ is parallel to $r$.

The vesica piscis is composed of two arcs, with centers $O$ and $O'$. Let's consider the case when the vertices $ABC$ of an inscribed triangle are all internal points of the arcs: $A$ on arc $O$ and $BC$ on arc $O'$. If $ABC$ is the triangle of maximum area, then $B$ must be the point on the arc which is the farthest from line $AC$ and by the above result the tangent at $B$ must be parallel to $AC$, i.e. radius $O'B$ must be perpendicular to $AC$ and thus lies on an altitude of triangle $ABC$. By the same argument we also get $O'C\perp AB$, hence $O'C$ also lies on an altitude and $O'$ is the orthocenter of the triangle.

But we also have $OA\perp BC$, implying that altitude $OA$ must pass through $O'$, and that can happen only if $A=O'$. Triangle $ABC$ is then isosceles and right angled at $A$, as shown in figure below. Its area is: $$ area_1={1\over2}d^2. $$

Figure 4

Let's now consider the case when one of the vertices (e.g. $A$) lies at an endpoint of the arcs, while $B$ and $C$ are internal, each on a different arc as in figure below (it's easy to show that we don't get maximum area if $B$ and $C$ lie on the same arc). Moreover, let $A'$ be the other endpoint and $M$ the midpoint of $OO'$ (see figure below).

For the area to be maximum we need as before $O'B\perp AC$ and $OC\perp AB$. If we set $\alpha=\angle O'OC$ we can notice that triangles $OFD$ and $AFM$ have both a right angle and a pair of equal vertical angles, hence $\angle MAF=\angle DOF=\alpha$. Moreover, $\angle O'AC={1\over2}\angle O'OC={1\over2}\alpha$, because they are an inscribed and central angle subtending the same arc in circle $O'$.

We can analogously set $\alpha'=\angle OO'B$ to find: $\angle GAM=\alpha'$ and $\angle OAB={1\over2}\alpha'$. But $\angle OAM=\angle O'AM=30°$, hence we have: $$ \alpha+{1\over2}\alpha'=30° \quad\text{and}\quad \alpha'+{1\over2}\alpha=30°. $$ This system of equation can be easily solved to get: $$ \alpha=\alpha'=20°. $$

Hence the largest triangle in this case is isosceles and symmetric about line $AA'$. To compute its sides, note that from $\angle ABA'=120°$ we get $\angle BA'A=60°-\alpha$ and $AB=AC=2d\sin(60°-\alpha)$. Its area is then $$ area_2={1\over2}AB\cdot AC\cdot\sin(\alpha+\alpha')= {1\over2}\big(2d\sin(60°-\alpha)\big)^2\sin2\alpha= 2d^2\sin^340°\approx 0.53 d^2. $$

Figure 3

Finally, we can consider the case when two points (e.g. $A$ and $B$) lie on the endpoints of the arcs. In that case point $C$ must be either $O$ or $O'$, for the tangent at $C$ to be parallel to $AB$. The area of triangle $ABC$ is: $$ area_1={1\over2}d^2\sin120°={\sqrt3\over4}d^2. $$

Figure 5

In summary, the largest area occurs in the second case.

ORIGINAL REASONING.

Assume WLOG that points $A$ and $B$ are chosen on the right side of the vesica, while $C$ is on the left side (obviously we cannot have maximum area if all three points lie on the same side). For given positions of $A$ and $B$ we get the maximum area if the tangent at $C$ is parallel to $AB$, i.e. if $OC\perp AB$, where $O$ is the center of the right circle (see figure below).

Hence if we choose $C$ at will and some point $D$ on $OC$, points $A$, $B$ of the largest triangle will be the intersections between the left circle (of center $O'$) and the perpendicular to $OC$ at $D$. Note that point $D$ must be close enough to $O$ so that point $A$ won't lie past the intersection point of the circle.

Let $H$ be the projection of $O'$ on $AB$ and $d$ the radius of the circles. If we set $\alpha=\angle O'OC$ and $x=OD$, then by triangle similitude we get: $$ O'H:x=\left({d-{x\over\cos\alpha}}\right):{x\over\cos\alpha} $$ that is: $$ O'H=d\cos\alpha-x. $$ We can then find base $AB$ of the triangle: $$ AB=2\sqrt{d^2-O'H^2}=2\sqrt{d^2-(d\cos\alpha-x)^2}. $$ The area of triangle $ABC$ is then: $$ area={1\over2}AB\cdot CD=(d-x)\sqrt{d^2-(d\cos\alpha-x)^2}. $$ If $x$ is kept constant we get the largest area when $\cos\alpha$ has the lowest possible value, i.e. when $\alpha$ has the greatest possible value (note that $0\le\alpha\le60°$ and $\cos\alpha$ is then positive and decreasing). But the largest possible value is attained by $\alpha$ when point $A$ lies at the intersection of the circles: in the following we can then study only that case.

figure 1

Let's suppose then that $A$ lies at an intersection of the circles and name $A'$ the other intersection point (see figure below). Note that $\angle A'AB=\alpha$ and $\angle ABA'=120°$, so that $\angle AA'B=60°-\alpha$. We can then compute: $$ AB=2d\sin(60°-\alpha). $$ From the equality $AB=2\sqrt{d^2-(d\cos\alpha-x)^2}$ we then get: $$ x=d\cos\alpha-d\cos(60°-\alpha) $$ and we we can finally write an expression for the area as a function of $\alpha$: $$ area={1\over2}AB\cdot (d-x)=d^2\sin(60°-\alpha) (1-\cos\alpha+\cos(60°-\alpha)). $$ Expanding, this can be rewritten as: $$ {area\over d^2}={\sqrt3\over2}\cos\alpha-{1\over2}\sin\alpha +\cos\alpha\sin\alpha-{\sqrt3\over4}. $$

Now we only need to show that the maximum of this expression is attained for $\alpha=20°$. Note that it vanishes for $\alpha=60°$ and $\alpha=-120°$, hence there must be an absolute maximum between those values, corresponding to a stationary point.

figure 2

Differentiating the above expression with respect to $\alpha$ and equating the result to zero, we get the equation: $$ 2\cos^2\alpha-{1\over2}\cos\alpha-1={\sqrt3\over2}\sin\alpha. $$ Squaring both sides we obtain $$ (2\cos^2\alpha-{1\over2}\cos\alpha-1)^2={3\over4}(1-\cos^2\alpha), $$ that is: $$ 16c^4-8c^3-12c^2+4c+1=0, $$ where I set $c=\cos\alpha$. This equation has $c={1\over2}$ as solution, which doesn't correspond to an acceptable value for $\alpha$. Hence we can divide the l.h.s. by $2c-1$ to get an equivalent cubic equation: $$ 8c^3-6c-1=0. $$ But from the cosine triplication formula: $\cos3x=4\cos^3x-3\cos x$ we get: $$ 4\cos^320°-3\cos20°=\cos60°={1\over2} $$ implying that $c=\cos20°$ is a solution of the above equation. The other two solutions can be shown to be negative, hence the only acceptable stationary point is $\alpha=20°$, as it was to be proved.