5.

Plane and solid geometry

Triangles
You will need a solid understanding of triangles in order to answer other questions
about polygons, coordinate geometry, and trigonometry. Luckily for you, the essential
rules governing triangles are few and easy to master.

Sum of the Interior Angles

The sum of the measures of the interior angles is 180º

Measure of an Exterior Angle

An exterior angle of a triangle is the angle formed by extending one of the sides of the
triangle past a vertex (the point at which two sides meet). An exterior angle is always
supplementary to the interior angle with which it shares a vertex and equal in
measure to the sum of the measures of the remote interior angles.
 Supplementary angles have sum equal to 180o
Complementary angles have sum equal to 90o

Triangle Inequality
The length of a side of any triangle is less than the sum of the lengths of the other two
sides and greater than the difference of the lengths of the other two sides.
If a , b , c are sides of a triangle then:

|b−c|< a<b+ c
|a−c|< b<a+ c
|b−a|<c <b+ a

Proportionality of Triangles
In every triangle, the longest side is opposite the largest angle and the shortest side is
opposite the smallest angle.

The Pythagorean Theorem

The Pythagorean theorem states that in a right triangle a2 + b2 = c2, where c is the
length of the hypotenuse, a and b are the lengths of the two legs, and the square of
the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the two legs.

Area of a Triangle
The formula for the area of a triangle is:
1
A= b h
2
This formula is valid for any side of a triangle chosen as base and the corresponding
height.
Another formula for finding the area of a triangle is:
1
A= absinC
2
where a , b are two sides of the triangle and ∠ C is the angle between them.
Polygons
Polygons are enclosed geometric shapes that cannot have fewer than three sides.
Polygons are named according to the number of sides they have. All polygons, no
matter the number of sides they possess, share certain characteristics:
 The sum of the interior angles of a polygon with n sides is (n – 2)1800.
 The measure of an angle of a regular polygon(regular polygon is a polygon
0
(n−2)∙ 180
whose sides and angle are all equal) is .
n
n(n−3)
 The number of diagonals of a polygon with n sides is .
2

Trapezoids
A trapezoid is a quadrilateral with one pair of parallel sides and one pair of
nonparallel sides.

The area of a trapezoid is:

(B+ b)∙ h
A=
2

Parallelogram
A parallelogram is a quadrilateral whose opposite sides are parallel.

Parallelograms have three very important properties:

1. Opposite sides are equal.
2. Opposite angles are congruent.
3. Adjacent angles are supplementary (they add up to 180º).
To visualize this last property, simply picture the opposite sides of the parallelogram
as parallel lines and one of the other sides as a transversal. You should then be able to
see why this would be true.
The area of a parallelogram is given by the formula:
 A=bh

Rectangle
A rectangle is a quadrilateral whose opposite sides are parallel and whose interior
angles are all right angles. A rectangle is essentially a parallelogram whose angles are
all right angles. As with parallelograms, the opposite sides of a rectangle are equal.

Rhombus
A rhombus is a quadrilateral whose opposite sides are parallel and whose sides are of
equal length.

Squares
A square is a quadrilateral in which all the sides are equal and all the angles are right
angles. It is a special type of rhombus, rectangle, and parallelogram.

Radians
Radian describes the plane angle subtended by a circular arc as the length of the arc
divided by the radius of the arc. One radian is the angle subtended at the center of a
circleby an arc that is equal in length to the radius of the circle.
In order to convert radians to degrees use the following formula:
degrees radians
=
360
0
2π

Prisms-Solids
A prism is defined as a geometric solid with two congruent bases that lie in parallel
planes. The perpendicular distance between the parallel planes in which the bases lie
is the height of the prism.

Volume of a Prism
The volume of a prism measures the amount of space taken up by that prism. The
general formula for calculating the volume of a prism is very simple

Volume=base × height
Surface Area of a Prism
The surface area of a prism is the sum of the areas of all the sides of the prism. The
formula for the surface area of a prism therefore depends on the type of prism you
are dealing with. As with volume, we cover the specifics of calculating surface area as
we cover each type of geometric solid.

Rectangular Solids
A rectangular solid is a prism with a rectangular base and lateral edges that are
perpendicular to its base. In short, a rectangular solid is shaped like a box.

The volume of a rectangular solid is given by the following formula:

V =l h w
The surface area of a rectangular solid is given by the following formula:
S . A=2 l h+2lw +2 w h
The formula for the diagonal length is:

d= √ l 2 +h2 + w2

Cubes
Just as a square is a special kind of rectangle, a cube is a special kind of rectangular
solid. A cube is a rectangular solid that has edges with all the same length. In other
words, the length, width, and height are equal, and each of its six faces is a square.

Volume of a cube
3
V =s
Surface Area of a cube
2
S . A=6 s
Diagonal Length of a Cube
 d=s √ 3

Cylinders
A cylinder is a prism with a circular base.

The volume of a cylinder is the product of the area of its base with its height. Because
a cylinder has a circular base, the volume of a cylinder is:
2
V =π r h
The surface area of a cylinder is the sum of the areas of the two bases and the lateral
face of the cylinder.
2
S . A=2 π r + 2 π r h

Cones
A cone is not a prism, but it is similar to a cylinder. A cone is essentially a cylinder in
which one of the bases is collapsed into a single point at the center of the base.

Since a cone is similar to a cylinder, except collapsed to a single point at one end, the
formula for the volume of a cone is a fraction of the formula for the volume of a
cylinder:
1 2
V= π r h
3
The surface area of a cone consists of the lateral surface area and the area of the base.
2
Total surface area=Area of Base + Lateral surface area=π r + π rl
Pyramids
A pyramid is like a cone, except that it has a polygon for a base.
The volume of a pyramid is:
1
V= Bh
3
Where B is the area of the base.

Spheres
A sphere is the collection of points in three-dimensional space that are equidistant
from a fixed point, the center of the sphere. Essentially, a sphere is a 3-D circle. The
main measurement of a sphere is its radius, r, the distance from the center to any
point on the sphere.

If you know the radius of a sphere, you can figure out both its volume and surface
area. The equation for the volume of a sphere is:

4 3
V= π r
3

The equation for the surface area of a sphere is:

2
S . A=4 π r