Platonic solid the inradius "r". That is, The following table lists the various radii of the Platonic solids together with their surface area and volume. The overall size is fixed by taking the edge length, "a", to be equal to 2. The constants "φ" and "ξ" in the above are given by Among the Platonic solids, either the dodecahedron or the icosahedron may be seen as the best approximation to the sphere. The icosahedron has the largest number of faces and the largest dihedral angle, it hugs its inscribed sphere the most tightly, and its surface area to volume ratio is closest
Volume element formula_25. In coordinates, where formula_27 is the determinant of the metric tensor "g" written in the coordinate system. A simple example of a volume element can be explored by considering a two-dimensional surface embedded in "n"-dimensional Euclidean space. Such a volume element is sometimes called an "area element". Consider a subset formula_28 and a mapping function thus defining a surface embedded in formula_30. In two dimensions, volume is just area, and a volume element gives a way to determine the area of parts of the surface. Thus a volume element is an expression of the form that allows one to