[Math] Sangaku – Find diameter of congruent circles in a $9$-$12$-$15$ right triangle

circleseuclidean-geometrygeometrysangakutriangles

My attention was brought to a sangaku problem in this book by Ubukata Tou. It shows this figure:
enter image description here

The question asks us to find the diameter of the circles (both circles are congruent) in a right triangle ($∠ABC = 90$), where $AB = 9$ and $BC = 12$. It also says that the diameter of the two circles is $30/7$. How would you solve this problem. In the book, it also states that this was a problem from the early Edo period suggesting that trigonometry may not have been around in Japan then. It would be very interesting to see a solution without the use of trigonometry then.

Best Answer

From the figure below, $\triangle AJI \cong \triangle KJC$. So $9+4z = 12-3z$, and $z = \frac 37$.

So one of the circles is the inscribed circle of the triangle which have side lengths $\frac{75}{7}, \frac{60}{7}$ and $\frac{45}{7}$, so the radius is

$$ \frac 12 \left(\frac{45}{7} + \frac{60}{7} - \frac{75}{7}\right) = \frac{15}{7}. $$

enter image description here