Four spheres of radius 1 are centred at the vertices of a tetrahedron with edge 2. What volume is the space between the spheres, inside the tetrahedron?
The answer can be written in the form If this expression is reduced to its simplest form ( positive integers, square free, ), what is ?
This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try
refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and,
finally, (c)
loading the
non-javascript version of this page
. We're sorry about the hassle.
First let's calculate the volume of the tetrahedron. Its base is an equilateral triangle of area A = 3 and its height is h = 3 2 6
So its volume is V t e t r = 3 1 A h = 3 2 2
Next we determine the solid angle of a tetrahedron (as seen from one of its vertices) From, for example, in Wikipedia , we use the formula. tan 2 Ω = ∣ a ∣ ∣ b ∣ ∣ c ∣ + ∣ c ∣ a ⋅ b + ∣ a ∣ b ⋅ c + ∣ b ∣ c ⋅ a ∣ a ⋅ ( b × c ) ∣
Using appropriate vectors that correspond to the edges from one vertex, for example a = ( 2 , 0 , 0 ) , b = ( 1 , 3 , 0 ) , c = ( 1 , 3 1 3 , 3 2 6 ) , we get tan 2 Ω = 8 + 4 + 4 + 4 4 2 = 5 2
Drawing a right-angled triangle, with right sides 5 and 2 , we get a hypothenuse of 3 3 and see that cos 2 Ω = 3 3 5 , sin 2 Ω = 3 3 2 Now using the double angle formula we find cos Ω = 2 7 2 5 − 2 7 2 = 2 7 2 3 and hence Ω = arccos 2 7 2 3 The volume of a sphere of radius 1 equals 3 4 π , and the solid angle for a full sphere is 4π. So, the volume of the intersction of a sphere with the tetrahedron is V i n t e r s e c t = 3 Ω . Now we have 4 such intersections, the volume between the spheres is V t e t r − 4 V i n t e r s e c t = 3 2 2 − 3 4 Ω = 3 2 2 − 4 arccos 2 7 2 3 So the answer is 2 + 2 + 4 + 2 3 + 2 7 + 3 = 6 1