Last week we saw how to compute the area of a circle from first principles. What about spheres?

To compute the volume of a sphere, let’s show that a hemisphere (with radius \(r\)) has the same volume as the vase shown in the figure below, formed by carving a cone from the circular cylinder with radius and height \(r\). Why this shape? Here’s why: if we cut these two solids at any height \(h\) (between 0 and \(r\)), the areas of the two slices match. Indeed, the slice—usually called cross section—of the sphere is a circle of radius \(\sqrt{r^2-h^2}\), which has area \(\pi(r^2-h^2)\). Similarly, the vase’s cross section is a radius \(r\) circle with a radius \(h\) circle cut out, so its area is \(\pi r^2-\pi h^2\), as claimed.

If we imagine the hemisphere and vase as being made from lots of tiny grains of sand, then we just showed, intuitively, that the two solids have the same number of grains of sand in every layer. So there should be the same number of grains in total, i.e., the volumes should match. This intuition is exactly right:

Cavalieri’s Principle: any two shapes that have matching horizontal cross sectional areas also have the same volume.

So the volumes are indeed equal, and all that’s left is to compute the volume of the vase. But we can do this! Recall that the cone has volume \(\frac{1}{3} (\text{area of base}) (\text{height}) = \frac{1}{3}\pi r^3\) (better yet, prove this too! Hint: use Cavalieri’s Principle again to compare to a triangular pyramid). Likewise, the cylinder has volume \((\text{area of base}) (\text{height}) = \pi r^3\), so the vase (and hemisphere) have volume \(\pi r^3 – \frac{1}{3} \pi r^3 = \frac{2}{3}\pi r^3\). The volume of the whole sphere is thus \(\frac{4}{3}\pi r^3\). Success!

The following visualization illustrates what we have shown, namely $$\text{hemisphere} + \text{cone} = \text{cylinder}.$$ The “grains of sand” in the hemisphere are being displaced horizontally by the stabbing cone, and at the end we have exactly filled the cylinder.