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   Volume of a Cube and Its Inscribed Sphere
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   Author  Topic: Volume of a Cube and Its Inscribed Sphere  (Read 1402 times)
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
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Volume of a Cube and Its Inscribed Sphere  
« on: Dec 5th, 2006, 7:42pm »
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A sphere is inscribed inside a five-dimensional cube.  What fraction of the volume of the cube lies inside the sphere?
 
What fraction lies inside the sphere for a ten-dimensional cube?
 
What fraction for a 5n-dimensional cube?
« Last Edit: Dec 7th, 2006, 11:42am by Whiskey Tango Foxtrot » IP Logged

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Re: Area of an Inscribed Sphere  
« Reply #1 on: Dec 7th, 2006, 9:02am »
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What has this to do with the title of the thread? Wink
« Last Edit: Feb 25th, 2010, 4:49pm by ThudnBlunder » IP Logged

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Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
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Re: Area of an Inscribed Sphere  
« Reply #2 on: Dec 7th, 2006, 9:09am »
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Nothing at all.  Undecided  Should be something like "Volume of a Cube and Its Inscribed Sphere."  Sorry, it's the end of the term and I've been sleeping too little.  Maybe a moderator will stop by and fix this.
« Last Edit: Dec 7th, 2006, 9:10am by Whiskey Tango Foxtrot » IP Logged

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Re: Area of an Inscribed Sphere  
« Reply #3 on: Dec 7th, 2006, 9:18am »
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You can edit your own posts, you know  Roll Eyes
Maybe you should get some sleep Wink
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Re: Area of an Inscribed Sphere  
« Reply #4 on: Dec 7th, 2006, 11:04am »
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Some research on Mathworld gives the volume of a unit n-sphere as 2(n+1)/2[pi](n-1)/2/n!! for odd n, and 2[pi]n/2/(n(n/2 - 1)!) for even n, where n!! is the "double factorial" 1*3*5*...*(n-2)*n.  The volume of the enclosing cube is simply 2n.
 
Thus for n odd, the fraction inside the sphere is [pi](n-1)/2/(2(n-1)/2n!!), and for n even is [pi]n/2/(2n-1n(n/2-1)!).
 
Plugging in n = 5 gives 0.164493407, n = 10 gives 0.002490395.  In general the fraction of the volumn of the n-cube within the n-sphere decreases somewhat faster than 10-n/2. Shocked
 
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Re: Volume of a Cube and Its Inscribed Sphere  
« Reply #5 on: Dec 7th, 2006, 11:43am »
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Oof, yes sleep is what I need.  That's right SMQ.  I thought this was a pretty cool problem, if I do say so myself.
« Last Edit: Dec 7th, 2006, 11:44am by Whiskey Tango Foxtrot » IP Logged

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Re: Volume of a Cube and Its Inscribed Sphere  
« Reply #6 on: Dec 7th, 2006, 12:46pm »
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on Dec 7th, 2006, 11:43am, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot wrote:
I thought this was a pretty cool problem, if I do say so myself.

Yeah, nice one and here is another. .Tongue
 
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=riddles_med ium;action=display;num=1102657337
« Last Edit: Feb 25th, 2010, 4:53pm by ThudnBlunder » IP Logged

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Re: Volume of a Cube and Its Inscribed Sphere  
« Reply #7 on: Dec 8th, 2006, 1:31am »
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on Dec 7th, 2006, 11:43am, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot wrote:
I thought this was a pretty cool problem

The cool thing is to derive the formula for the volume of n-dimensional sphere. The coolest thing is to notice that this has a global maximum at some unexpected dimension.
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