Height of the tetrahedron through Euclidean geometry

3d

The edge lengths of a tetrahedron ABCD are:

AD=BD=CD=1; AB=2sin(a/2), BC=2sin(b/2), CA= 2sin(c/2) where a,b and c are angles ADB,BDC and CDA respectively.

What will be the height of tetrahedron from vertex A?

I know this can be done easily for any triangle in plane 2D geometry by drawing a perpendicular from the desired corner and applying the Pythagoras theorem. Following an analogous method I considered a perpendicular AE of length "h" from A and joined B,D,C to "E" and applied Pythagoras theorem to form three equations but couldn't progress any further. I did try to formulate a fourth equation via summation of volumes of the tetrahedrons ABDE, ADCE and BECA and for that I used Heron's formula at the base BCD but it made the situation very complex and hard to solve. I am looking for a solution via a geometric construction similar to that of finding height in a triangle, if possible.

Best Answer

Allow me first to rename your angles in a logical manner in the following way :

$AB=2 \sin(c/2), BC=2 \sin(a/2), CA= 2 \sin(b/2)$ where a,b and c are angles $BDC,BDC$ and $CDA$ respectively.

(for example I don't find notation $AB=2 \cos(a/2)$ very logical because if we have two letters $A$ and $B$, the third one must be the missing letter $c$).

The volume $V$ of tetrahedron $DABC$ is equal to

$$V=\frac16 \det M \ \ \ \text{where} \ \ \ M:=\pmatrix{|&|&| \\ \vec{DA}&\vec{DB}&\vec{DC}\\|&|&|}$$

Squaring, we get :

$$36 V^2=\det(M)^2=\det(M^T)\det(M)=\det(M^TM)$$

i.e., the determinant of all dot products in this way :

$$36 V^2 = =\begin{vmatrix}\vec{DA}.\vec{DA}& \vec{DA}.\vec{DB}&\vec{DA}.\vec{DC}\\ \vec{DB}.\vec{DA}& \vec{DB}.\vec{DB}&\vec{DB}.\vec{DC}\\ \vec{DC}.\vec{DA}& \vec{DC}.\vec{DB}&\vec{DC}.\vec{DC}\end{vmatrix}$$

$$36 V^2=\begin{vmatrix}1&\cos c&\cos b\\ \cos c & 1 & \cos a\\ \cos b & \cos a & 1\end{vmatrix}$$

$$36 V^2=1+2\cos a \cos b \cos c -(\cos^2a +\cos^2 b + \cos^2 c) \tag{1}$$

Besides, volume $V$ can be computed as :

$$V=\frac13 h \times \text{area(DBC)}=\frac13 h \times \frac12 1 \times 1 \sin a$$

Squaring the previous relationship, we get :

$$36 V^2=h^2 \sin^2 a \tag{2}$$

The value of altitude's length $h$ is obtained from the comparison of (1) and (2) :

$$h^2=\frac{1}{\sin^2 a}(1+2\cos a \cos b \cos c -(\cos^2a +\cos^2 b + \cos^2 c))$$

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