In grade school we learn that a square can be equidecomposed into two congruent right isosceles triangles. Does the following three dimensional generalization hold?
Consider a trirectangular tetrahedron with vertices at $(0,0,0)$, $(1,0,0)$, $(0,1,0)$ and $(0,0,1)$ and volume $\frac{1}{6}$. (It has three orthogonal right triangular faces and one equilateral triangular face opposite the (tri-right-angled) common vertex.) The inscribing cube of the tetrahedron has unit side length and unit volume. Is there a dissection of this cube into 6 tetrahedra of the above form?
Provided that such a dissection exists and this is the way it is to be done, it's easy to see how 4 tetrahedra can be glued together to give the boundary of the cube, but I don't quite see how the other two should fit inside.
Best Answer
That such a decomposition doesn't exist can be shown by looking at the interior solid angles at the vertices.
The cube has eight interior solid angles of $\pi/2$ each.
Each of the six tetrahedra has one interior solid angle of $\pi/2$ and three that can be computed as shown here:
$$\Omega=\phi_{ab}+\phi_{bc}+\phi_{ac}-\pi=\pi/2 + \arccos\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}+ \arccos\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}-\pi=2\arccos\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}-\pi/2\;.$$
Thus, the sum of the interior solid angles of the cube is $4\pi$, and the sum of the interior solid angles of the tetrahedra is
$$6\left(\pi/2+3\left(2\arccos\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}-\pi/2\right)\right)=6\left(6\arccos\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}-\pi\right)\;.$$
This is not equal to $4\pi$, since $\arccos\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}$ is not a rational multiple of $\pi$. (Here's an elementary proof of that fact.) In fact it is almost $5\pi$.
[Edit: I just realized in the shower that all the following analysis of potential inner vertices is actually not necessary. No matter what happens at the inner vertices, we have to fill the eight vertices of the cube with vertices of the tetrahedra, and the six vertices with interior solid angle $\pi/2$ are not enough to do it, so we have to use at least one of the others, but then we can't make the sum come out to $4\pi$, a rational multiple of $\pi$.]
This establishes that you can't fill the cube with the six tetrahedra by letting all their vertices coincide with the cube's vertices. It seems geometrically obvious that you can't do it with any of the vertices inside the cube, either, but this, too, can be proved rigorously using the solid angles. If there were a vertex inside the cube, the entire solid angle of $4\pi$ around that inner vertex would have to be filled. The candidates for filling it are a face of a tetrahedron, which subtends a solid angle of $2\pi$, an edge of a tetrahedron, which subtends a solid angle of twice the dihedral angle of the intersecting planes, i.e. either $\pi$ or $2\arccos\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}$, or an interior solid angle of a vertex of a tetrahedron. Thus, adding up all the solid angles at the eight outer vertices and at $v$ inner vertices, the following equation would have to have solutions with non-negative integer values of $j$, $k$, $l$, $m$, $n$ and $v$:
$$6\left(6\arccos\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}-\pi\right)+j(2\pi)+k(\pi)+l\left(2\arccos\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}\right)+m(\pi/2)+n\left(\arccos\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}-\pi/2\right)$$
$$=4\pi+v(4\pi)\;.$$
This is impossible, since the coefficient in front of $\arccos\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}$ is non-zero, and thus the equation would imply that this is a rational multiple of $\pi$, which it isn't (see above).
P.S.: I just realized I forgot to mention an essential part of the proof:
$$\cos 2\phi = 2 \cos^2 \phi - 1\;,$$
$$\arccos x = \frac{1}{2}\arccos(2x^2-1)\;,$$
$$\arccos \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}=\frac{1}{2}\arccos(-\frac{1}{3})\;,$$
so $\arccos \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}$ is rational iff $\arccos(-\frac{1}{3})$ is rational; then we can apply the theorem I linked to above.