Tangent Circles - Malfatti's Problem

Malfatti's Problem

Malfatti's problem is to carve three cylinders from a triangular block of marble, using as much of the marble as possible. In 1803, Gian Francesco Malfatti conjectured that the solution would be obtained by inscribing three mutually tangent circles into the triangle (a problem that had previously been considered by Japanese mathematician Ajima Naonobu); these circles are now known as the Malfatti circles, although the conjecture has been proven to be false.