identical spheres, each of radius are placed in space tangent to each other, i.e. each one is tangent to the other three. Now we want to circumscribe a regular tetrahedron about this set of spheres, such that each of its faces is tangent to of the spheres. Find the volume of this tetrahedron.
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The centers of the spheres form a regular tetrahedron A B C D , with edge length a = 4 . The tetrahedron that contains the four spheres is a dilation of A B C D . The center of this dilation is the center O of A B C D . We just have to find the scale factor r of the dilation.
In the figure, O E is perpendicular to the base A B C and extended meets the base of the image tetrahedron at H . This extension has the length of the radius of the spheres, i.e. E H = 2 Furthermore, O E is 4 1 the height of A B C D , thus, O E = 4 1 D E = 4 1 × 3 2 a = 4 1 × 3 2 × 4 = 3 2 Hence, r = O E O H = O E O E + E H = 3 2 3 2 + 2 = 1 + 6 For the ratio of the volumes of the tetrahedrons we then have V A B C D V A ′ B ′ C ′ D ′ = r 3 ⇒ V A ′ B ′ C ′ D ′ = r 3 6 2 a 3 = ( 1 + 6 ) 3 6 2 4 3 ≈ 3 0 9 . 5 8 3 8