Cavalieris principle

Two stacks of British coins with the same volume, illustrating

Cavalieris principle in three dimensions

In geometry, Cavalieris principle, a modern implementation of the method of indivisibles, named after
Bonaventura Cavalieri, is as follows:[1]
2-dimensional case: Suppose two regions in a
plane are included between two parallel lines in that
plane. If every line parallel to these two lines intersects both regions in line segments of equal length,
Bonaventura Cavalieri, the mathematician the principle is named
then the two regions have equal areas.
after.

3-dimensional case: Suppose two regions in threespace (solids) are included between two parallel
planes. If every plane parallel to these two planes in- advance in the history of the calculus. The indivisibles
tersects both regions in cross-sections of equal area, were entities of codimension 1, so that a plane gure was
then the two regions have equal volumes.
thought as made out of an innity of 1-dimensional lines.
Meanwhile, innitesimals were entities of the same diToday Cavalieris principle is seen as an early step to- mension as the gure they make up; thus, a plane gure
wards integral calculus, and while it is used in some would be made out of parallelograms of innitesimal
forms, such as its generalization in Fubinis theorem, re- width. Applying the formula for the sum of an arithmetic
sults using Cavalieris principle can often be shown more progression, Wallis computed the area of a triangle by
directly via integration. In the other direction, Cavalieris partitioning it into innitesimal parallelograms of width
principle grew out of the ancient Greek method of ex- 1/.
haustion, which used limits but did not use innitesimals.

2 Examples

History

2.1 Spheres

Cavalieris principle was originally called the method of

indivisibles, the name it was known by in Renaissance
Europe. Archimedes was able to nd the volume of a
sphere given the volumes of a cone and cylinder using
a method resembling Cavalieris principle. In the 5th
century AD, Zu Chongzhi and his son Zu Gengzhi established a similar method to nd a spheres volume.[2]
The transition from Cavalieris indivisibles to Evangelista
Torricelli's and John Wallis's innitesimals was a major

If one knows that the volume of a cone is

1
3 (base height) , then one can use Cavalieris
principle to derive the fact that the volume of a sphere is
4
3
3 r , where r is the radius.
That is done as follows: Consider a sphere of radius r
and a cylinder of radius r and height r . Within the
cylinder is the cone whose apex is at the center of the
1

2 EXAMPLES

2.3 The napkin ring problem

r
y

Main article: Napkin ring problem

In what is called the napkin ring problem, one shows by

The disk-shaped cross-section of the sphere has the same area as

the ring-shaped cross-section of that part of the cylinder that lies
outside the cone.

sphere and whose base is the base of the cylinder. By

the Pythagorean theorem, the plane located y units above
the( equator
) intersects the sphere in a circle of area
r2 y 2 . The area of the planes intersection with
the( part of )the cylinder that is outside of the cone is also
r2 y 2 . The aforementioned volume of the cone is
1
3 of the volume of the cylinder, thus the volume outside
of the cone is 23 the volume of the cylinder. Therefore the
volume of the upper half of the sphere is 23 of the volume
of the cylinder. The volume of the cylinder is

If a hole of height h is drilled straight through the center of a

sphere, the volume of the remaining band does not depend on the
size of the sphere. For a larger sphere, the band will be thinner
but longer.

Cavalieris principle that when a hole of length h is drilled

straight through the center of a sphere, the volume of the
remaining material surprisingly does not depend on the
size of the sphere. The cross-section of the remaining
ring is a plane annulus, whose area is the dierence between the areas of two circles. By the Pythagorean theo2
3
base height = r r = r
rem, the area of one of the two circles is times r 2 y 2 ,
where r is the spheres radius and y is the distance from
(Base is in units of area; height is in units of distance. the plane of the equator to the cutting plane, and that of
the other is times r 2 (h/2) 2 . When these are subArea distance = volume.)
( 2 ) 3 tracted, the r 2 cancels; hence the lack of dependence of
Therefore the volume of the upper
is 3 r
( 4 )half-sphere
the bottom-line answer upon r.
3
and that of the whole sphere is 3 r .

2.4 Cycloids
2.2

Cones and pyramids

The fact that the volume of any pyramid, regardless of

the shape of the base, whether circular as in the case of a
cone, or square as in the case of the Egyptian pyramids,
or any other shape, is (1/3) base height, can be established by Cavalieris principle if one knows only that it is
true in one case. One may initially establish it in a single case by partitioning the interior of a triangular prism
into three pyramidal components of equal volumes. One
may show the equality of those three volumes by means
The horizontal cross-section of the region bounded by two cyof Cavalieris principle.
In fact, Cavalieris principle or similar innitesimal argument is necessary to compute the volume of cones
and even pyramids, which is essentially the content of
Hilberts third problem polyhedral pyramids and cones
cannot be cut and rearranged into a standard shape,
and instead must be compared by innite (innitesimal)
means. The ancient Greeks used various precursor techniques such as Archimedess mechanical arguments or
method of exhaustion to compute these volumes.

cloidal arcs traced by a point on the same circle rolling in one

case clockwise on the line below it, and in the other counterclockwise on the line above it, has the same length as the corresponding
horizontal cross-section of the circle.

N. Reed has shown[3] how to nd the area bounded by

a cycloid by using Cavalieris principle. A circle of radius r can roll in a clockwise direction upon a line below
it, or in a counterclockwise direction upon a line above
it. A point on the circle thereby traces out two cycloids.

3
When the circle has rolled any particular distance, the angle through which it would have turned clockwise and that
through which it would have turned counterclockwise are
the same. The two points tracing the cycloids are therefore at equal heights. The line through them is therefore
horizontal (i.e. parallel to the two lines on which the circle
rolls). Consequently each horizontal cross-section of the
circle has the same length as the corresponding horizontal cross-section of the region bounded by the two arcs of
cyloids. By Cavalieris principle, the circle therefore has
the same area as that region.
It is a short step from there to the conclusion that the area
under a single whole cycloidal arch is three times the area
of the circle. Which then means that the area of a rectangle bounding one half of a single cycloidal arch is two
times the area of the circle, the area of a rectangle bounding a single whole cycloidal arch is four times the area
of the circle, and the rectangularly-bounded area above a
single whole cycloidal arch is exactly equal to the area of
the circle.

See also
Fubinis theorem (Cavalieris principle is a particular
case of Fubinis theorem)

References

[1] Howard Eves, Two Surprising Theorems on Cavalieri

Congruence, The College Mathematics Journal, volume
22, number 2, March, 1991), pages 118124
[2] Zill, Dennis G.; Wright, Scott; Wright, Warren S. (2009).
Calculus: Early Transcendentals (3 ed.). Jones & Bartlett
Learning. p. xxvii. ISBN 0-7637-5995-3. Extract of
page 27
[3] N. Reed, Elementary proof of the area under a cycloid,
Mathematical Gazette, volume 70, number 454, December, 1986, pages 290291

External links
Weisstein, Eric W.,
MathWorld.

Cavalieris Principle,

(German) Prinzip von Cavalieri

Cavalieri Integration

6 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

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