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Without the math:

Radius is always proportional to circumference, so a circle twice the size is twice as big around.

Take the case of two identical circles. To move a point on the first circle from 12 o'clock back to 12 o'clock, it only goes halfway around the other circle, which you can prove to yourself by imagining you've wrapped a string around the circle and marked it at 12 and 6 o'clock. If you unwrap half of the string and wrap it around the other circle, then the end of the rope is at 6 o'clock. To roll the string back up by moving the circle, the top of the circle will be pointing upward again when it reaches the bottom. 1 full revolution. Now wrap the other half of the string around the other side, 6 has to go back to the bottom again to roll the string back up. 2 revolutions.



It’s interesting to read others reasoning on this. I find it hard to follow and much harder to generalize without some notation (and a diagram which this comment box struggles to reproduce)


I like to decompose it.

Hold center of small circle still, rotate big circle once counter clock wise, small one rotates 3x clockwise.

Glue them together, rotate big circle once clockwise, small circle also rotates once clockwise.

Sum them together, 0 rotations for big circle, 4 for small. I'm not at all sure how to rigorously generalize.




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