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If the sphere is isometrically embedded in Euclidean space, the sphere's intersection with a plane is a circle, which can be interpreted extrinsically to the sphere as a Euclidean circle: a locus of points in the plane at a constant Euclidean distance (the extrinsic radius) from a point in the plane (the extrinsic center). A great circle lies ...
S 1: a 1-sphere is a circle of radius r; S 2: a 2-sphere is an ordinary sphere; S 3: a 3-sphere is a sphere in 4-dimensional Euclidean space. Spheres for n > 2 are sometimes called hyperspheres. The n-sphere of unit radius centered at the origin is denoted S n and is often referred to as "the" n-sphere. The ordinary sphere is a ...
Once the radius is fixed, the three coordinates (r, θ, φ), known as a 3-tuple, provide a coordinate system on a sphere, typically called the spherical polar coordinates. The plane passing through the origin and perpendicular to the polar axis (where the polar angle is a right angle) is called the reference plane (sometimes fundamental plane).
The sphere's radius is taken as unity. For specific practical problems on a sphere of radius R the measured lengths of the sides must be divided by R before using the identities given below. Likewise, after a calculation on the unit sphere the sides a, b, and c must be multiplied by R.
The 3-sphere is the boundary of a -ball in four-dimensional space. The -sphere is the boundary of an -ball. Given a Cartesian coordinate system, the unit -sphere of radius can be defined as:
Geodesics on the sphere are great circles, circles whose center coincides with the center of the sphere. Any two distinct points on a sphere that are not antipodal (diametrically opposite) both lie on a unique great circle, which the points separate into two arcs; the length of the shorter arc is the great-circle distance between the points.
The sum of the angles of a spherical triangle is not equal to 180°. A sphere is a curved surface, but locally the laws of the flat (planar) Euclidean geometry are good approximations. In a small triangle on the face of the earth, the sum of the angles is only slightly more than 180 degrees. A sphere with a spherical triangle on it.
r is the radius of the sphere, h is the height of the cap, and; sr is the unit, steradian, sr = rad 2. Because the surface area A of a sphere is 4πr 2, the definition implies that a sphere subtends 4π steradians (≈ 12.56637 sr) at its centre, or that a steradian subtends 1/4π ≈ 0.07958 of a sphere.