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Consider a double cone (like a past and future light cone) centered at the origin. Now imagine a sphere centered at the origin.

What angle of the slope of the double cone makes it so that the it splits the sphere into 3 pieces such that the volume(s) inside the double-cone is equal to the volume outside the double cone?

(This is easier in 2 dimensions where the answer is simply 45 degrees!)

zooby
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  • My intuition may be off here but why would the sphere be split into $3$ pieces (as opposed to $2$)? – pwerth Jan 23 '19 at 22:59
  • Yes, counting the inside of the double cone as one piece so-to-speak. – zooby Jan 23 '19 at 23:06
  • Have you tried setting up the integral and getting an expression that depends upon the angle? – John Douma Jan 23 '19 at 23:13
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    All these answers for a question that evidences no work on the asker’s part! – amd Jan 23 '19 at 23:38
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    You can easily look up formulas for the area of a cone and spherical cap. Express them in terms of the radius of the sphere and cone angle and solve for the angle. – amd Jan 23 '19 at 23:40
  • @amd what and spoil your fun? Also, if someone else wants to find this answer it is now in Google. – zooby Jan 24 '19 at 05:47

3 Answers3

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The volume of the portion of a cone inside a unit sphere equals the solid angle it subtends. You want this angle to be $\dfrac\pi3$ steradians.

From Wolfram, the solid angle corresponding to the half aperture $\theta$ is

$$\pi(2(1-\cos\theta)+\sin\theta).$$

You can solve for $\theta$.

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Note that by symmetry, for the double cone to split the sphere into two pieces of equal volume, each hemisphere must also be split into two pieces of equal volume by each cone. So we can just work with the upper hemisphere. Since a sphere has volume $\displaystyle\frac{4\pi r^{3}}{3}$, the volume a hemisphere is $\displaystyle\frac{2\pi r^{3}}{3}$.

Using standard spherical coordinates $(\theta,\phi,\rho)$, the equation of the sphere is $\rho=r$ and the equation of the cone is $\phi=\phi_{0}$, where $\phi_{0}\in[0,\pi/2]$ is the desired angle. We can then easily compute the volume of the sphere below the cone: \begin{align} V &= \int_{0}^{2\pi}\int_{0}^{\phi_{0}}\int_{0}^{r}\rho^{2}\sin{\phi}\ d\rho\ d\phi \ d\theta\\ &=\frac{r^{3}}{3}\int_{0}^{2\pi}\left(-\cos{\phi}\bigg\rvert^{\phi_{0}}_{0}\right)\ d\theta \\ &= \frac{2\pi r^{3}}{3}(-\cos{\phi_{0}}+1) \end{align} Now, we want this volume to be half of the volume of the hemisphere, so we should have $$\frac{2\pi r^{3}}{3}(-\cos{\phi_{0}}+1)=\frac{\pi r^{3}}{3}$$ which yields $$\cos{\phi_{0}}=\frac{1}{2}$$ so the desired angle is $$\phi_{0}=\cos^{-1}\left(\frac{1}{2}\right)=\frac{\pi}{3}$$ I should mention that this angle $\phi$ is measured from the top of the $z$-axis.

pwerth
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For half volume you want: $\phi = \pi/3$ so:

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