Special Segments in Circles: Introduction

Bicycle Wheel

Have you ever ridden a bicycle? Have you ever ridden in a car?  Can you imagine how these would work if the circle was not round?  In the image of the bicycle above, you see the circular wheel with all of its spokes.  The spokes are radii of the circle, each of them the same length.  You also see the circular gears, one set attached to the wheel and one set attached to the peddles.  The gears are connected with the chain.  This chain is tangent to both sets of gears.  In this section, you are going to learn about properties of the radius and tangent as well as properties of various other segments in circles.