Volume formula for a \(\mathbb Z_2\)-symmetric spherical tetrahedron through its edge lengths (Q1944769): Difference between revisions

In contrast with the elegant Cayley-Menger formula for the volume of a Euclidean tetrahedron (which also generalizes to a simplex of any dimension), the problem of finding a formula for the volume of a hyperbolic or spherical tetrahedron (and other polyhedra) remains a formidable challenge. The paper under review starts with a survey of results pertaining to this problem. The survey includes references for formulas for the volumes of: orthoschemes, hyperbolic polyhedra with an ideal vertex, hyperbolic and spherical Lambert cubes, general non-Euclidean tetrahedron (as a linear combination of dilogarithmic functions depending on the dihedral angles), ideal hyperbolic tetrahedra (tetrahedra with vertices on the ideal boundary of hyperbolic space and with equal certain pairs of dihedral angles), octahedra with certain symmetries, and others. These formulas are in terms of edge lengths and dihedral angles, and they are sometimes written in terms of certain integrals and of certain special functions devised for the purpose. The authors then find a formula for a spherical tetrahedron that is invariant up to isometry under rotation of angle \(\pi\) in the middle points of a certain pair of its skew edges. They also note relations between their results and other recent works.