This article needs additional citations for verification .(May 2014) |
Solid geometry or stereometry is the geometry of three-dimensional Euclidean space (3D space). [1] A solid figure is the region of 3D space bounded by a two-dimensional closed surface; for example, a solid ball consists of a sphere and its interior.
Solid geometry deals with the measurements of volumes of various solids, including pyramids, prisms (and other polyhedrons), cubes, cylinders, cones (and truncated cones). [2]
The Pythagoreans dealt with the regular solids, but the pyramid, prism, cone and cylinder were not studied until the Platonists. Eudoxus established their measurement, proving the pyramid and cone to have one-third the volume of a prism and cylinder on the same base and of the same height. He was probably also the discoverer of a proof that the volume enclosed by a sphere is proportional to the cube of its radius. [3]
Basic topics in solid geometry and stereometry include:
Advanced topics include:
Whereas a sphere is the surface of a ball, for other solid figures it is sometimes ambiguous whether the term refers to the surface of the figure or the volume enclosed therein, notably for a cylinder.
Figure | Definitions | Images | |
---|---|---|---|
Parallelepiped |
| ||
Rhombohedron |
| ||
Cuboid |
| ||
Polyhedron | Flat polygonal faces, straight edges and sharp corners or vertices | Small stellated dodecahedron | Toroidal polyhedron |
Uniform polyhedron | Regular polygons as faces and is vertex-transitive (i.e., there is an isometry mapping any vertex onto any other) | (Regular) Tetrahedron and Cube | Unform Snub dodecahedron |
Pyramid | A polyhedron comprising an n-sided polygonal base and a vertex point | square pyramid | |
Prism | A polyhedron comprising an n-sided polygonal base, a second base which is a translated copy (rigidly moved without rotation) of the first, and n other faces (necessarily all parallelograms) joining corresponding sides of the two bases | hexagonal prism | |
Antiprism | A polyhedron comprising an n-sided polygonal base, a second base translated and rotated.sides]] of the two bases | square antiprism | |
Bipyramid | A polyhedron comprising an n-sided polygonal center with two apexes. | triangular bipyramid | |
Trapezohedron | A polyhedron with 2n kite faces around an axis, with half offsets | tetragonal trapezohedron | |
Cone | Tapers smoothly from a flat base (frequently, though not necessarily, circular) to a point called the apex or vertex | A right circular cone and an oblique circular cone | |
Cylinder | Straight parallel sides and a circular or oval cross section | A solid elliptic cylinder | A right and an oblique circular cylinder |
Ellipsoid | A surface that may be obtained from a sphere by deforming it by means of directional scalings, or more generally, of an affine transformation | Examples of ellipsoids | sphere (top, a=b=c=4), spheroid (bottom left, a=b=5, c=3), |
Lemon | A lens (or less than half of a circular arc) rotated about an axis passing through the endpoints of the lens (or arc) [6] | ||
Hyperboloid | A surface that is generated by rotating a hyperbola around one of its principal axes |
Various techniques and tools are used in solid geometry. Among them, analytic geometry and vector techniques have a major impact by allowing the systematic use of linear equations and matrix algebra, which are important for higher dimensions.
A major application of solid geometry and stereometry is in 3D computer graphics.
Euclidean geometry is a mathematical system attributed to ancient Greek mathematician Euclid, which he described in his textbook on geometry, Elements. Euclid's approach consists in assuming a small set of intuitively appealing axioms (postulates) and deducing many other propositions (theorems) from these. Although many of Euclid's results had been stated earlier, Euclid was the first to organize these propositions into a logical system in which each result is proved from axioms and previously proved theorems.
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers (arithmetic).
In geometry, a polyhedron is a three-dimensional figure with flat polygonal faces, straight edges and sharp corners or vertices.
In geometry, a 4-polytope is a four-dimensional polytope. It is a connected and closed figure, composed of lower-dimensional polytopal elements: vertices, edges, faces (polygons), and cells (polyhedra). Each face is shared by exactly two cells. The 4-polytopes were discovered by the Swiss mathematician Ludwig Schläfli before 1853.
A sphere is a geometrical object that is a three-dimensional analogue to a two-dimensional circle. Formally, a sphere is the set of points that are all at the same distance r from a given point in three-dimensional space. That given point is the center of the sphere, and r is the sphere's radius. The earliest known mentions of spheres appear in the work of the ancient Greek mathematicians.
In geometry, a torus is a surface of revolution generated by revolving a circle in three-dimensional space one full revolution about an axis that is coplanar with the circle. The main types of toruses include ring toruses, horn toruses, and spindle toruses. A ring torus is sometimes colloquially referred to as a donut or doughnut.
Spherical geometry or spherics is the geometry of the two-dimensional surface of a sphere or the n-dimensional surface of higher dimensional spheres.
A cone is a three-dimensional geometric shape that tapers smoothly from a flat base to a point called the apex or vertex.
A cylinder has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base.
In geometry and science, a cross section is the non-empty intersection of a solid body in three-dimensional space with a plane, or the analog in higher-dimensional spaces. Cutting an object into slices creates many parallel cross-sections. The boundary of a cross-section in three-dimensional space that is parallel to two of the axes, that is, parallel to the plane determined by these axes, is sometimes referred to as a contour line; for example, if a plane cuts through mountains of a raised-relief map parallel to the ground, the result is a contour line in two-dimensional space showing points on the surface of the mountains of equal elevation.
Four-dimensional space (4D) is the mathematical extension of the concept of three-dimensional space (3D). Three-dimensional space is the simplest possible abstraction of the observation that one needs only three numbers, called dimensions, to describe the sizes or locations of objects in the everyday world. For example, the volume of a rectangular box is found by measuring and multiplying its length, width, and height. This concept of ordinary space is called Euclidean space because it corresponds to Euclid's geometry, which was originally abstracted from the spatial experiences of everyday life.
Elementary mathematics, also known as primary or secondary school mathematics, is the study of mathematics topics that are commonly taught at the primary or secondary school levels around the world. It includes a wide range of mathematical concepts and skills, including number sense, algebra, geometry, measurement, and data analysis. These concepts and skills form the foundation for more advanced mathematical study and are essential for success in many fields and everyday life. The study of elementary mathematics is a crucial part of a student's education and lays the foundation for future academic and career success.
The duocylinder, also called the double cylinder or the bidisc, is a geometric object embedded in 4-dimensional Euclidean space, defined as the Cartesian product of two disks of respective radii r1 and r2:
In geometry, the Weaire–Phelan structure is a three-dimensional structure representing an idealised foam of equal-sized bubbles, with two different shapes. In 1993, Denis Weaire and Robert Phelan found that this structure was a better solution of the Kelvin problem of tiling space by equal volume cells of minimum surface area than the previous best-known solution, the Kelvin structure.
In geometry, a three-dimensional space is a mathematical space in which three values (coordinates) are required to determine the position of a point. Most commonly, it is the three-dimensional Euclidean space, that is, the Euclidean space of dimension three, which models physical space. More general three-dimensional spaces are called 3-manifolds. The term may also refer colloquially to a subset of space, a three-dimensional region, a solid figure.
Geometry is a branch of mathematics concerned with questions of shape, size, relative position of figures, and the properties of space. Geometry is one of the oldest mathematical sciences.
In geometry, a Steinmetz solid is the solid body obtained as the intersection of two or three cylinders of equal radius at right angles. Each of the curves of the intersection of two cylinders is an ellipse.
Geometry is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is called a geometer. Until the 19th century, geometry was almost exclusively devoted to Euclidean geometry, which includes the notions of point, line, plane, distance, angle, surface, and curve, as fundamental concepts.
The Alexandrov uniqueness theorem is a rigidity theorem in mathematics, describing three-dimensional convex polyhedra in terms of the distances between points on their surfaces. It implies that convex polyhedra with distinct shapes from each other also have distinct metric spaces of surface distances, and it characterizes the metric spaces that come from the surface distances on polyhedra. It is named after Soviet mathematician Aleksandr Danilovich Aleksandrov, who published it in the 1940s.
In geometry, an infinite skew polygon or skew apeirogon is an infinite 2-polytope with vertices that are not all colinear. Infinite zig-zag skew polygons are 2-dimensional infinite skew polygons with vertices alternating between two parallel lines. Infinite helical polygons are 3-dimensional infinite skew polygons with vertices on the surface of a cylinder.