1

Volumes of cones and spheres

For any object whose cross-sections are congruent, the volume
of the object is
(area of cross section) (height of object)
where the height is measured perpendicular to the plane of the
cross section. For example:
Rectangular cross sections
Volume = (length width) height
A cylinder is an object with a circular basethe cross sections
are congruent circles.
1. Find the volume of a cylinder with radius r and height h.
2. A cone is an object whose cross sections are circles that
are not congruent. However, they are similar. Actually, all circles are similar.
Imagine approximating this cone with cylinders of equal
height. The radius of each cylinder is the radius of the
cones cross section, at the height of the cylinders base:
Problems with a Point: May 8, 2002 c EDC 2002
Volumes of cones and spheres: Problem 2
(a) There are ten cylinders. What is the height of each
cylinder?
(b) Each cylinder has a dierent radius.
i. Find the radius of the top cylinder.
ii. Find the radius of the next cylinder down.
iii. Suppose you number the cylinders from 1 (the top)
to 10 (the bottom). What is the radius of cylinder i?
(c) What is the total volume of the 10 cylinders? This may help:

n
i=1
i
2
=
1
6
n(n + 1)(2n + 1)
(d) Now suppose you used 100 cylinders instead of only
10. Again number them, from 1 (the top) to 100 (the
bottom).
i. Find the radius of cylinder i.
ii. What is the total volume of the 100 cylinders?
(e) Now imagine using n cylinders. Find the total volume
of the n cylinders.
(f) As n gets larger and larger (going to innity), what
happens to the volume of the cylinders? Explain why Hint: Can you express the volume
as r
2
h(something)?
this is the volume of the cone.
3. Use the same idea to nd the volume of this pyramid. Each
cross section is a square, the base has side length s, and
the height is h.
4. Challenge Use the same idea to nd the volume of a
sphere. (Hint: First nd the volume of the hemisphere,
shown next to the sphere.)
Problems with a Point: May 8, 2002 c EDC 2002
Volumes of cones and spheres: Hints 1
Hints
Hint to problem 2b. To nd the radius of a cylinder, con-
sider that the cross section of a conethrough the vertexis a
triangle. Suppose you cut the top of the cone o, right where
the bottom of the cylinder would be. How does its cross section
compare to the cross section of the whole cone? (You only need
consider half the cross section.)
Hint to problem 4. The cross section of the sphere is a circle.
If you impose a coordinate grid, with the origin at the center of
the sphere, you can write a simple equation for the circle. Now,
consider the second cylinder from the bottom. The edge of the
bottom base touches the circle. What are the coordinates where
they touch? Which coordinate gives the radius of the cylinder?
Problems with a Point: May 8, 2002 c EDC 2002
Volumes of cones and spheres: Answers 1
Answers
1. r
2
h.
2. (a) The height of each cylinder is
h
10
.
(b) i. The radius of the top cylinder is
r
10
.
ii. The radius of the cylinder is
2r
10
, or
r
5
.
iii. The radius of cylinder i is
ir
10
.
(c) The total volume is 0.385r
2
h.
(d) i. The radius ith cylinder is
ir
100
.
ii. The total volume is
338350
100
3
r
2
h, or 0.338350r
2
h.
(e) The total volume is r
2
h
(n+1)(2n+1)
6n
2
.
(f) As n goes to innity, the volume of the cylinders ap-
proaches
1
3
r
2
h. See the solutions for an explanation
of why this is the volume of the cone.
3. The volume of the pyramid is
1
3
s
2
h.
4. The volume of the sphere is
4
3
r
3
.
Problems with a Point: May 8, 2002 c EDC 2002
Volumes of cones and spheres: Solutions 1
Solutions
1. Since the area of the base is r
2
, the volume is r
2
h.
2. (a) The height of each cylinder is
h
10
.
(b) i. To nd the radius of the top cylinder, consider the
right triangle formed by the altitude and radius
shown in the diagram. Connecting the two vertices
that arent already touching gives a line that goes
through the bottom edge of each cylinder:
The triangle formed by the top cylinder is similar
to the big triangle, so you can set up a proportion:
h
10
h
=
r
top
r
So the radius of the top cylinder, r
top
, is
r
10
.
ii. The triangle formed by the radius of the next cylin-
der and the portion of the altitude from that line
up to the top of the cone is also similar to the big
triangle. Since the height this time is
2h
10
, the radius
of the cylinder will be
2r
10
, or
r
5
.
iii. For cylinder i, the corresponding small triangle will
have height
ih
10
, so the radius of cylinder i is
ir
10
.
(c) The volume of the ith cylinder is (
ir
10
)
2
(
h
10
), so the
volume of all 10 cylinders is (
r
10
)
2
(
h
10
) + (
2r
10
)
2
(
h
10
) +
+ (
10r
10
)
2
(
h
10
), or (
r
2
h
10
3
)

10
i=1
i
2
. Since

10
i=1
i
2
is
1
6
(10)(11)(21), the total volume becomes 3.85r
2
h.
(d) i. Working as before, a triangle can be drawn similar
to the large triangle formed by the radius of the base
and the altitude. For the ith cylinder, the height of
the triangle is
ih
100
, so the base of the triangle (and
therefore the radius of the ith cylinder) is
ir
100
.
ii. The volume of the ith cylinder is (
ir
100
)
2
(
h
100
), so the
total volume of all 100 is (
r
100
)
2
(
h
100
)+(
2r
100
)
2
(
h
100
)+
+ (
100r
100
)
2
(
h
100
), or (
r
2
h
100
3
)

100
i=1
i
2
. Since

100
i=1
i
2
Problems with a Point: May 8, 2002 c EDC 2002
Volumes of cones and spheres: Solutions 2
is
1
6
(100)(101)(201), the total volume becomes
338350
100
3
r
2
h, or 0.338350r
2
h.
(e) For n cylinders, the radius of the ith cylinder would
be
ri
n
, and the height would be
h
n
. The volume of
the ith cylinder is (
ri
n
)
2
(
h
n
) and the total volume is

n
i=1
r
2
hi
2
n
3
, or
r
2
h
n
3

n
i=1
i
2
. Using the formula for the
sum gives
r
2
h
n
3
(
1
6
)n(n + 1)(2n + 1), or r
2
h
(n+1)(2n+1)
6n
2
.
(f) Look at the fraction in the last version of the formula
given above,
(n+1)(2n+1)
6n
2
. (The rest doesnt depend on
n, so we can ignore it for the moment.) By making
numerical approximations for larger and larger n, a
student will probably conjecture (correctly) that this
approaches
1
3
. Algebraically this can be found by rst
expanding the numerator and then dividing each term
by the denominator:
(n + 1)(2n + 1)
6n
2
=
2n
2
+ 3n + 1
6n
2
=
1
3
+
1
2n
+
1
6n
2
As n goes to innity, the last two terms go to 0, leaving
only
1
3
. The volume of the cylinders approaches
1
3
r
2
h.
By increasing the value of n, you are making more and
more divisions. The cylinders come closer to approx-
imating the cone. When there are an innite number
of cylinders, they exactly t the cone, so the volume
of an innite number of cylinders is the same as the
volume of the cone.
3. As with the cone, the rst thing to do is nd the dimensions
of each of the n sectionsin this case, a rectangular prism.
Similar triangles are formed: Note that the base is
s
2
, not s.
The side length of the ith prism is
si
n
, so the volume of the
ith prism is
_
s
2
i
2
n
2
_ _
h
n
_
.
Problems with a Point: May 8, 2002 c EDC 2002
Volumes of cones and spheres: Solutions 3
The volume of all n prisms is
n

i=1
s
2
h
n
3
i
2
=
s
2
h
n
3
n

i=1
i
2
=
s
2
h
n
3
(
1
6
)n(n + 1)(2n + 1)
= s
2
h
_
2n
3
+ 3n
2
+ n
6n
3
_
Again, the fraction becomes
1
3
+
1
2n
+
1
6n
2
, which becomes
1
3
as n goes to innity. The volume of the pyramid is
1
3
s
2
h.
4. Divide the hemisphere into n cylinders, as you did with the
cone. The radius of the ith cylinder is a little more dicult
to calculate, here. A cross section of the hemisphere
perpendicular to the basewill be a semicircle. Impose a
coordinate grid with the center of the sphere at the origin:
The equation for the circle is x
2
+ y
2
= r
2
. If the base
of the cylinder touches the circle at (x, y), the radius will
be x. The distance from the base (x-axis) to the bottom
of the cylinder is y, so it will probably be easier to number
the cylinders from the bottom up, this time, and start with
0 at the bottom. Then the ith cylinder touches the circle
at (x,
ir
n
). From the equation for the circle, you can nd
that x =
_
r
2
(
ir
n
)
2
, or
r
n

n
2
i
2
.
Remember that the n cylinders are numbered starting at 0,
so they go from 0 to n1. The volume of the hemisphere,
then, is
Notice that since adding 0
2
doesnt change the sum,

n1
i=0
i
2
is the same as

n1
i=1
i
2
, so the
usual formulawith n 1 instead
of nwill work.
n1

i=0

_
r
n

n
2
i
2
_
2
_
r
n
_
=
n1

i=0

_
r
2
n
2
_
(n
2
i
2
)
_
r
n
_
=
r
3
n
3
n1

i=0
(n
2
i
2
)
=
r
3
n
3
_
n
2
n1

i=0
1
n1

i=0
i
2
_
=
r
3
n
3
_
n
2
(n)
1
6
(n 1)n(2n 1)
_
Problems with a Point: May 8, 2002 c EDC 2002
Volumes of cones and spheres: Solutions 4
= r
3
r
3
_
2n
3
3n
2
+ n
6n
3
_
= r
3
r
3
_
1
3

1
2n
+
1
6n
2
_
As n goes to innity, only
1
3
r
3
is left in the second term,
so the volume of the cylinders becomes
2
3
r
3
. This is the
volume of the hemisphere, so double it to get the volume
of the sphere:
4
3
r
3
.
Problems with a Point: May 8, 2002 c EDC 2002