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The sphere has the smallest surface area of all surfaces that enclose a given volume, and it encloses the largest volume among all closed surfaces with a given surface area. [11] The sphere therefore appears in nature: for example, bubbles and small water drops are roughly spherical because the surface tension locally minimizes surface area.
Graphs of surface area, A against volume, V of the Platonic solids and a sphere, showing that the surface area decreases for rounder shapes, and the surface-area-to-volume ratio decreases with increasing volume. Their intercepts with the dashed lines show that when the volume increases 8 (2³) times, the surface area increases 4 (2²) times.
A sphere of radius r has surface area 4πr 2.. The surface area (symbol A) of a solid object is a measure of the total area that the surface of the object occupies. [1] The mathematical definition of surface area in the presence of curved surfaces is considerably more involved than the definition of arc length of one-dimensional curves, or of the surface area for polyhedra (i.e., objects with ...
For example, assuming the Earth is a sphere of radius 6371 km, the surface area of the arctic (north of the Arctic Circle, at latitude 66.56° as of August 2016 [7]) is 2π ⋅ 6371 2 | sin 90° − sin 66.56° | = 21.04 million km 2 (8.12 million sq mi), or 0.5 ⋅ | sin 90° − sin 66.56° | = 4.125% of the total surface area of the Earth.
The authalic radius is an surface area-equivalent radius for solid figures such as an ellipsoid. The osculating circle and osculating sphere define curvature -equivalent radii at a particular point of tangency for plane figures and solid figures, respectively.
The surface area, or properly the -dimensional volume, of the -sphere at the boundary of the (+) -ball of radius is related to the volume of the ball by the differential equation
The sphere's radius is taken as unity. For specific practical problems on a sphere of radius R the measured lengths of the sides must be divided by R before using the identities given below. Likewise, after a calculation on the unit sphere the sides a, b, and c must be multiplied by R.
If the radius of the sphere is denoted by r and the height of the cap by h, the volume of the spherical sector is =. This may also be written as V = 2 π r 3 3 ( 1 − cos φ ) , {\displaystyle V={\frac {2\pi r^{3}}{3}}(1-\cos \varphi )\,,} where φ is half the cone angle, i.e., φ is the angle between the rim of the cap and the direction ...