Slicing the Diagonal

Geometry Level pending

A space diagonal of a cube is sliced into three segments by two planes, each of which is perpendicular to the diagonal and goes through three of the vertices of the cube. If the lengths of the resulting segments of the diagonal are in the proportion a : b : c a:b:c , report the fraction a b \frac{a}{b} .


The answer is 1.000.

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1 solution

Marta Reece
Apr 14, 2017

H B HB is the space diagonal and it is not distorted in this projection. The planes intersecting it are defined by the vertices A F C AFC and E D G EDG respectively. They appear as lines in this projection. The distances D F DF and F B FB are distorted, but they are equal to each other, each being half the diagonal of the face A B C D ABCD . Similarly H D = D F HD=DF , being half diagonals of face E F G H EFGH .

The D F DF portion of both diagonals does coincide, since F F must be on line A C AC and D D on line E G EG .

Since H D = D F = F B HD=DF=FB , the diagonal is divided in proportions 1 : 1 : 1 1:1:1 and the answer is 1 1 .

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It is interesting that in 3 dimensions we have a diagonal length ( 3 ) \sqrt(3) divided into 3 sections each length 1 3 \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}} .

In 2 dimensions we have a diagonal length ( 2 ) \sqrt(2) divided into 2 sections each length 1 2 \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}} .

To stretch a point, we could say that in 1 dimension we have a segment length ( 1 ) \sqrt(1) divided into 1 section length 1 1 \frac{1}{\sqrt{1}} .

More interestingly, we could ask about 4 dimensions. The space diagonal is ( 4 ) = 2 \sqrt(4)=2 long. Is it also divided into four equal sections each 1 2 \frac{1}{2} long?

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