Two circles (with diameters \(a\) and \(b\)) meet at a single point. A line is drawn between their centres through their common point; its length is \((a + b)/2\), the sum of the two radii. This line is the hypotenuse of a right angled triangle with one other side of length \((a - b)/2\), the difference of the radii. Pythagoras’s theorem is used to infer that the remaining side of the right-angled triangle has length \(\sqrt{(ab)}\).Then visualizing what happens to the triangle when the diameter of the smaller circle varies between 0 and the diameter of the larger circle, one infers that \(0 &lt; \sqrt{(ab)} &lt; (a + b)/2\); then verifying symbolically that \(\sqrt{(ab)} = (a + b)/2\) when \(a = b\), one concludes that for positive \(a\) and \(b\), \(\sqrt{(ab)} \le (a + b)/2\).