Encyclopedia > Solid angle measure

  Article Content

Solid angle

Redirected from Solid angle measure

A solid angle is the three dimensional analog of the ordinary angle. Instead of two lines meeting at a vertex, though, one needs a three dimensional figure that meets at a point. Good examples of objects that do this are a cone or a pyramid. To find the solid angle that the object covers, imagine a sphere centered at the point of the object. Now, take the surface area of the part of the sphere that is contained within the object, and divide that by the total area of the sphere.

Solid angle is measured in either radians2 or degrees2. To obtain the solid angle in radians squared, multiply the fractional area by 4π. To obtain the solid angle in degrees squared, multiply the fractional area by 1802/π which is equal to 129600/π. The SI unit of solid angle is the steradian (symbol sr), which is equal to radian2.

Solid angle is useful for...



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Bullying

... it merely designated anyone who assumed power for any period of time without a legitimate basis of authority. The first to have the title of "Tyrant" wa ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 22.6 ms