History
The problem of Apollonius is one of the earliest examples of enumerative geometry. This problem asks for the number and construction of circles that are tangent to three given circles, points or lines. In general, the problem for three given circles has eight solutions, which can be seen as 23, each tangency condition imposing a quadratic condition on the space of circles. However, for special arrangements of the given circles, the number of solutions may also be any integer from 0 (no solutions) to six; there is no arrangement for which there are seven solutions to Apollonius' problem.
Read more about this topic: Enumerative Geometry
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