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Example Questions
Example Question #81 : Solid Geometry
Each of the faces of a regular tetrahedron has a base of and a height of . What is the surface area of this tetrahedron?
The surface area is the area of all of the faces of the tetrahedron. To begin, we must find the area of one of the faces. Because a tetrahedron is made up of triangles, we simply plug the given values for base and height into the formula for the area of a triangle:
Therefore, the area of one of the faces of the tetrahedron is . However, because a tetrahedron has 4 faces, in order to find the surface area, we must multiply this number by 4:
Therefore, the surface area of the tetrahedron is .
Example Question #1 : How To Find The Surface Area Of A Tetrahedron
What is the surface area of a regular tetrahedron with a slant height of ?
Cannot be determined
If this is a regular tetrahedron, then all four triangles are equilateral triangles.
If the slant height is , then that equates to the height of any of the triangles being .
In order to solve for the surface area, we can use the formula
where in this case is the measure of the edge.
The problem has not given the edge; however, it has provided information that will allow us to solve for the edge and therefore the surface area.
Picture an equilateral triangle with a height .
Drawing in the height will divide the equilateral triangle into two 30/60/90 right triangles. Because this is an equilateral triangle, we can deduce that finding the measure of the hypotenuse will suffice to solve for the edge length ().
In order to solve for the hypotenuse of one of the right triangles, either trig functions or the rules of the special 30/60/90 triangle can be used.
Using trig functions, one option is using .
Rearranging the equation to solve for ,
Now that has been solved for, it can be substituted into the surface area equation.
Example Question #1 : How To Find The Surface Area Of A Tetrahedron
What is the surface area of a regular tetrahedron when its volume is 27?
The problem is essentially asking us to go from a three-dimensional measurement to a two-dimensional one. In order to approach the problem, it's helpful to see how volume and surface area are related.
This can be done by comparing the formulas for surface area and volume:
We can see that both calculation revolve around the edge length.
That means, if we can solve for (edge length) using volume, we can solve for the surface area.
Now that we know , we can substitute this value in for the surface area formula:
Example Question #71 : Solid Geometry
Give the surface area of a regular tetrahedron with edges of length 60.
A tetrahedron comprises four triangular surfaces; if the tetrahedron is regular, then each surface is an equilateral triangle. The area of an equilateral triangle with sides of length can be computed using the formula
;
The total surface area of the tetrahedron is four times this, or
Set and substitute:
.
Example Question #1 : Volume
A regular tetrahedron is composed of four equilateral triangles. The formula for the volume of a regular tetrahedron is:
, where represents the length of the side.
Plugging in our values we get:
Example Question #2 : Volume
Find the volume of a tetrahedron with an edge of .
Write the formula for the volume of a tetrahedron.
Substitute in the length of the edge provided in the problem.
Rationalize the denominator.
Example Question #1 : How To Find The Volume Of A Tetrahedron
Find the volume of a tetrahedron with an edge of .
Write the formula for the volume of a tetrahedron.
Substitute in the length of the edge provided in the problem:
Cancel out the in the denominator with one in the numerator:
A square root is being raised to the power of two in the numerator; these two operations cancel each other out. After canceling those operations, reduce the remaining fraction to arrive at the correct answer:
Example Question #2 : How To Find The Volume Of A Tetrahedron
Find the volume of a tetrahedron with an edge of .
Write the formula for finding the volume of a tetrahedron.
Substitute in the edge length provided in the problem.
Cancel out the in the denominator with part of the in the numerator:
Expand, rationalize the denominator, and reduce to arrive at the correct answer:
Example Question #3 : How To Find The Volume Of A Tetrahedron
Find the volume of a tetrahedron with an edge of .
Write the formula the volume of a tetrahedron.
Substitute the edge length provided in the equation into the formula.
Cancel out the denominator with part of the numerator and solve the remaining part of the numerator to arrive at the correct answer.
Example Question #4 : How To Find The Volume Of A Tetrahedron
Find the volume of a tetrahedron with an edge of .
Write the formula the volume of a tetrahedron and substitute in the provided edge length.
Rationalize the denominator to arrive at the correct answer.