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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.
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 basic quantities describing a sphere (meaning a 2-sphere, a 2-dimensional surface inside 3-dimensional space) will be denoted by the following variables r {\displaystyle r} is the radius, C = 2 π r {\displaystyle C=2\pi r} is the circumference (the length of any one of its great circles ),
The ratio of the volume of a sphere to the volume of its circumscribed cylinder is 2:3, as was determined by Archimedes. The principal formulae derived in On the Sphere and Cylinder are those mentioned above: the surface area of the sphere, the volume of the contained ball, and surface area and volume of the cylinder.
The formula for the volume of the -ball can be derived from this by integration. Similarly the surface area element of the -sphere of radius , which generalizes the area element of the -sphere, is given by
The formula for the surface area of a sphere is more difficult to derive: because a sphere has nonzero Gaussian curvature, it cannot be flattened out. The formula for the surface area of a sphere was first obtained by Archimedes in his work On the Sphere and Cylinder. The formula is: [6] A = 4πr 2 (sphere), where r is the radius of the sphere.
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 ...