I'm struggling to find the radius of the circle in the image (the only other given length is the length between B and the right angle below, which is 5). Is it even possible to get the radius without knowing any other dimensions? Or is there a way to find it? I've tried to use Pythagoras but without knowing the length of the side of the triangle going towards O, it was hard to find it.

Finding the radius with chord length
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$\begingroup$
geometry
circles
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0Where have the 2.8s come from in your diagram? – 2017-02-23
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0It was given in the problem, where they asked to get the angle that I marked as theta. – 2017-02-23
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0Just to clarify then, everything in the diagram you provided is from the question itself? – 2017-02-23
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0Yes I think so.The only information that I didn't put was 5 m (between point B and the right angle below it). – 2017-02-23
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0Well I'm almost done, just need to find the angle PBO, if you have any ideas – 2017-02-23
1 Answers
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There is no way to find $\theta$ or the radius from the given data. To see why, imagine to move point $P$ to the left on the horizontal line and let $O$ be the center of circle $ABP$: all given lengths would stay the same, but $r$ and $\theta$ would change.
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1This seems to be the problem posed by Regiomontanus. It has sense if he wants the radius for the greatest visual angle. – 2017-02-25
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0Thank you for reminding me of that.The angle of course is maximum when the radius is minimum, that is when the circle is tangent to the base line ($r=7,8$ m). – 2017-02-25
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0Does that mean that the radius would be 7 or 8 m when the angle is maximized? – 2017-02-25
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0Sorry, I should have written $r=7.8$ m. That is: when the circle is tangent, the radius is equal to the distance of $O$ from the baseline. – 2017-02-25
