geometry - Determine height of box packed with spheres

I got such a wonderful answer regarding The Diagonals of a Regular Octagon, so I thought I'd try asking another question we had on our Pizza and Problem quiz activity at College of the Redwoods. The question was:

A 4 × 4 × h rectangular box contains a sphere of radius 2 and eight smaller spheres of radius 1. The smaller spheres are each tangent to three sides of the box, and the larger sphere is tangent to each of the smaller spheres. What is h?

I'd like to learn how to construct such a model using Mathematica and determine the height h of the box.

Thanks for any help.

Answer

Your question is like a sangaku problem. What is the distance between the centre of the large sphere and one of the smaller spheres? The large sphere centre is $\{2,2,h/2\}$, one of the small spheres is at $\{1,1,1\}$. Their separation equals the sum of their radii. That is,

Norm[{2, 2, h/2} - {1, 1, 1}] == 1 + 2

Solve the expression for $h$, and choose the positive root, $h=2(1+\sqrt{7})$.

With[{h = 2 (1 + Sqrt[7])},
   Graphics3D[{Orange,
      Sphere[{1, 1, 1}, 1], Sphere[{3, 1, 1}, 1], Sphere[{1, 3, 1}, 1],
      Sphere[{3, 3, 1}, 1], Sphere[{1, 1, h - 1}, 1], 
      Sphere[{3, 1, h - 1}, 1],
      Sphere[{1, 3, h - 1}, 1], Sphere[{3, 3, h - 1}, 1],
      Red, Sphere[{2, 2, h/2}, 2]
     }, Lighting -> "Neutral",Axes->True]]

Comments

plotting - Filling between two spheres in SphericalPlot3D

Manipulate[ SphericalPlot3D[{1, 2 - n}, {θ, 0, Pi}, {ϕ, 0, 1.5 Pi}, Mesh -> None, PlotPoints -> 15, PlotRange -> {-2.2, 2.2}], {n, 0, 1}] I cant' seem to be able to make a filling between two spheres. I've already tried the obvious Filling -> {1 -> {2}} but Mathematica doesn't seem to like that option. Is there any easy way around this or ... Answer There is no built-in filling in SphericalPlot3D . One option is to use ParametricPlot3D to draw the surfaces between the two shells: Manipulate[ Show[SphericalPlot3D[{1, 2 - n}, {θ, 0, Pi}, {ϕ, 0, 1.5 Pi}, PlotPoints -> 15, PlotRange -> {-2.2, 2.2}], ParametricPlot3D[{ r {Sin[t] Cos[1.5 Pi], Sin[t] Sin[1.5 Pi], Cos[t]}, r {Sin[t] Cos[0 Pi], Sin[t] Sin[0 Pi], Cos[t]}}, {r, 1, 2 - n}, {t, 0, Pi}, PlotStyle -> Yellow, Mesh -> {2, 15}]], {n, 0, 1}]

plotting - Plot 4D data with color as 4th dimension

I have a list of 4D data (x position, y position, amplitude, wavelength). I want to plot x, y, and amplitude on a 3D plot and have the color of the points correspond to the wavelength. I have seen many examples using functions to define color but my wavelength cannot be expressed by an analytic function. Is there a simple way to do this? Answer Here a another possible way to visualize 4D data: data = Flatten[Table[{x, y, x^2 + y^2, Sin[x - y]}, {x, -Pi, Pi,Pi/10}, {y,-Pi,Pi, Pi/10}], 1]; You can use the function Point along with VertexColors . Now the points are places using the first three elements and the color is determined by the fourth. In this case I used Hue, but you can use whatever you prefer. Graphics3D[ Point[data[[All, 1 ;; 3]], VertexColors -> Hue /@ data[[All, 4]]], Axes -> True, BoxRatios -> {1, 1, 1/GoldenRatio}]

plotting - Adding a thick curve to a regionplot

Suppose we have the following simple RegionPlot: f[x_] := 1 - x^2 g[x_] := 1 - 0.5 x^2 RegionPlot[{y < f[x], f[x] < y < g[x], y > g[x]}, {x, 0, 2}, {y, 0, 2}] Now I'm trying to change the curve defined by $y=g[x]$ into a thick black curve, while leaving all other boundaries in the plot unchanged. I've tried adding the region $y=g[x]$ and playing with the plotstyle, which didn't work, and I've tried BoundaryStyle, which changed all the boundaries in the plot. Now I'm kinda out of ideas... Any help would be appreciated! Answer With f[x_] := 1 - x^2 g[x_] := 1 - 0.5 x^2 You can use Epilog to add the thick line: RegionPlot[{y < f[x], f[x] < y < g[x], y > g[x]}, {x, 0, 2}, {y, 0, 2}, PlotPoints -> 50, Epilog -> (Plot[g[x], {x, 0, 2}, PlotStyle -> {Black, Thick}][[1]]), PlotStyle -> {Directive[Yellow, Opacity[0.4]], Directive[Pink, Opacity[0.4]],

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