Solid angle orientation formula_9, and distance from the viewer as: where the surface area of a sphere is . The solid angle of a cone with its apex at the apex of the solid angle, and with apex angle 2, is the area of a spherical cap on a unit sphere For small such that , this reduces to the area of a circle . The above is found by computing the following double integral using the unit surface element in spherical coordinates: This formula can also be derived without the use of calculus. Over 2200 years ago Archimedes proved that the
Surface area area of the whole surface is then obtained by adding together the areas of the pieces, using additivity of surface area. The main formula can be specialized to different classes of surfaces, giving, in particular, formulas for areas of graphs "z" = "f"("x","y") and surfaces of revolution. One of the subtleties of surface area, as compared to arc length of curves, is that surface area cannot be defined simply as the limit of areas of polyhedral shapes approximating a given smooth surface. It was demonstrated by Hermann Schwarz that already for the cylinder, different choices of approximating flat surfaces can