Maths Olympiad Prep

Track / Stage 5 / 108 of 400 #708 of 1964

Problem 708

AIME late
Geometry Difficulty 5.3 Find the answer

4.42. Find the area of the curvilinear triangle formed by the intersection of a sphere of radius RR with a trihedral angle, the dihedral angles of which are equal to α,β\alpha, \beta and γ\gamma, and the vertex coincides with the center of the sphere.

A number or a short expression. Spacing, $ signs and \frac vs / are all fine.

Official solution

4.42. Let us first consider a spherical "bigon," a part of the sphere enclosed within a dihedral angle of magnitude α\alpha, with its edge passing through the center of the sphere. The area of such a figure is proportional to α\alpha, and when α=π\alpha=\pi, it is equal to 2πR22 \pi R^{2}; therefore, it is equal to 2αR22 \alpha R^{2}.

Each pair of planes of the given trihedral angle corresponds to two "bigons." These "bigons" cover the given curvilinear triangle and the triangle symmetric to it relative to the center of the sphere in 3 layers, and the rest of the sphere in one layer. Therefore, the sum of their areas is equal to the surface area of the sphere, increased by 4S4 S, where SS is the area of the desired triangle. Therefore, S=R2(α+S=R^{2}(\alpha+ +β+γπ)+\beta+\gamma-\pi).

Source: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic, difficulty and ordering added by this site.