Thickness of a simplex whose edge lengths fall within a prescribed range (Q1376484)

The triangle inequality implies that whenever three real numbers \(a,b,c\) lie within the interval \([\lambda,1]\), with \(1/2< \lambda<1\), they are the edge lengths of some triangle. This simple observation has been generalized to edge lengths of simplexes in higher dimensions, and to hyperbolic and spherical spaces, in a series of papers by the author, mostly written with J. B. Wilker. As \(\lambda\) approaches its lower bound (1/2 in the case of the Euclidean plane), the set of possible triangles includes increasingly ``thin'' simplexes, until when the limiting case is reached, there are sets within the interval that are edge lengths only for degenerate simplexes of measure 0. Conversely, if the lengths of the longest and shortest edges are very similar, the simplex must be nearly regular, and ``thick'' compared with its edge lengths. In this paper, the author quantifies this observation by obtaining lower bounds for the thickness of an \(n\)-simplex whose edge lengths are constrained to be within a specified interval. Results are obtained for Euclidean, hyperbolic, and spherical spaces.