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A tetrahedron's vertices are uniformly random points on a sphere. What is the probability that the tetrahedron's four faces are all acute triangles?

Simulation

I simulated $5\times 10^7$ such random tetrahedrons (using sphere point picking). The proportion with four acute triangles was $0.08332644$, which is $0.999917\times\frac{1}{12}$.

Related probabilities

  • The probability that the random tetrahedron contains the centre of the sphere is $\frac18$, but this event is not equivalent to all four faces being acute triangles.
  • If a triangle's vertices are uniformly random points on a sphere, the probability that the triangle is acute is $\frac12$ (here is my proof). The probability that all four faces of the random tetrahedron are acute triangles is not necessarily $\left(\frac12\right)^4$ because the four triangles of the tetrahedron being acute are not independent events.
  • If a tetrahedron's vertices are three random points on a sphere plus the centre of the sphere, a simulation suggests that the probability that the tetrahedron's faces are all acute triangles is $\frac{1}{15}$.

EDIT: Posted at MO.

Dan
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    I guess we can also assume that the points are drawn independently from each other. A cool question, and a good job with the background search. – Jyrki Lahtonen Jul 16 '25 at 06:50
  • @JyrkiLahtonen Yes, the points are chosen independently. – Dan Jul 16 '25 at 06:55
  • A cool trick would be to mimick the proof by symmetry of the 2D-case. Do we get the same probability if we restrict the vertices among the ones of a fixed icosahedron? If so, it might be interesting to classify the possible tetrahedra according to the action of $A_5$ (the group of the orientation-preserving symmetries of the icosahedron) on them. – Jack D'Aurizio Jul 17 '25 at 00:45
  • Related question on the volume of the random tetrahedron: https://math.stackexchange.com/q/4962375/207316 – PM 2Ring Jul 18 '25 at 14:38
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    @PM2Ring In your link, the vertices of the tetrahedron are within a sphere, but in my question they are on the surface of a sphere. (If the vertices are within a sphere, a simulation suggests that the probability that all four faces are acute triangles is about $0.069$, which doesn't seem to be a simple rational number.) – Dan Jul 18 '25 at 20:31

2 Answers2

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Almost an answer now: it just remains to write down the last integral and compute it.

In $\mathbb{R}^3$ the locus of points $P$ such that $\widehat{APB}$ is an obtuse angle is the ball having $AB$ as a diameter, from now on named $AB$-ball.

It follows that all the faces of $ABCD$ (with $A,B,C,D\in S^2$) are acute-angled iff the $AB$-ball$\cap S^2$ and the $CD$-ball$\cap S^2$ are disjoint, and the same applies to the couples $(BC,DA)$ and $(AC,BD)$.

Up to symmetry we may assume that $B,C,D$ all lie on the same parallel in the northern hemisphere and $A$ lies on the meridian $0$, but not necessarily in the northern hemisphere. The probability that the $BCD$-face is acute angled is $\frac{1}{4}$ by a very well-known simmetry argument, and the distribution of the latitude $\varphi$ of $BCD$ is also pretty simple, since the surface area of a spherical cap is directly proportional to its height, by one of Archimedes' lemmas.

Another chance is to assume, up to symmetry, that $A$ and $B$ are opposite points on the same parallel in the northern hemisphere. For any $d\in[0,2]$, the probability that $AB\leq d$ equals $d^2/4$.

If we assume that the $AB$ edge is fixed and its length is $d$, the probability that all the angles adjacent to $AB$ are acute is simply $\frac{d^2}{4}$. So, in general, the probability that all the angles adjacent to $AB$ are acute is $\int_{0}^{2}\left(\frac{x}{2}\right)^3\,dx =\frac{1}{2}$. The edges $AB$ and $CD$ are independent, so the probability that all the angles adjacent to $AB$ or $CD$ are acute is $\frac{1}{4}$. It only remains to impose that the spherical caps with base diameters $AB$ and $CD$ are disjoint.

If $AB=d$ the surface area of the spherical cap with base diameter $AB$ is $2\pi\left(1-\sqrt{1-\frac{d^2}{4}}\right)$. The geodetic distance (along the surface of the sphere) between the center of the spherical cap and any point on its boundary is $\arcsin\frac{d}{2}$. Two spherical caps are disjoint iff the geodetic distance between their centers exceeds the sum of their geodetic radii. Now an interesting fact: the distribution of the geodetic distance $\ell$ between the center of the $AB$-cap and the center of the $CD$-cap does not depend on the lengths of $AB$ or $CD$. By the previous observations, the probability that $\ell\leq k$ is $\sin^2\frac{k}{2}$. The density function for the distribution of the geodetic radius $r$ of the $AB$-cap is $2\sin x\cos x=\sin(2x)$. By naming $r'$ the geodetic radius of the $CD$-cap we have that the density function $f$ for the distribution of $r+r'$, supported on $[0,\pi]$, is given by a convolution. In particular $$ f(x) = \frac{\sin(2s)-2x\cos(2s)}{4}\quad\text{with } s=\min(x,\pi-x) $$ and the probability that the $AB$ and $CD$-caps are disjoint equals

$$ \int_{0}^{\pi} f(x)\int_{x}^{\pi}\frac{1}{2}\sin(t)\,dt\,dx = \int_{0}^{\pi} f(x)\cos^2\left(\frac{x}{2}\right)\,dx = \frac{1}{2}.$$

The only perk it remains to tackle is the fact that the events $E_2=$"all the angles adjacent to $AB$ or $CD$ are acute" and $E_1$="the endpoints of $AB$ or $CD$ see the other edge under an acute angle" are not independent. If they were, the wanted probability would be $\frac{1}{8}$.

Let's devise a strategy. $E_1$ happens with probability $50\%$, and by assuming that $E_1$ holds (i.e. that the $AB$ and $CD$ caps are disjoint) we have that $E_2$ holds, or not, just according to the lengths of $AB$ and $CD$ and the angles that the $AB$-geodetic and the $CD$-geodetic form with respect to the geodetic joining their midpoints. This is an integral in a few variables, with all of them being independent and with reasonably simple distributions.

Analogue in the plane

The analogue problem in $\mathbb{R}^2$ is to compute the probability that the $AB$-strip avoids $C$ and $D$ and the $CD$-strip avoids $A$ and $B$. This happens accordingly to the amplitudes of $\widehat{CMB}$ and $\widehat{ANB}$, with $M$ and $N$ being the midpoints of $AB$ and $CD$.

In the spherical case, if $CD=d$ then the probability that $A$ lies on the outside of the $CD$-strip is $1-\frac{d}{2}$, so the probability that both $A$ and $B$ lie outside of the $CD$-strip, assuming independence, is $\left(1-\frac{d}{2}\right)^2$. If we consider

$$ p=\int_{0}^{2}\int_{0}^{2}\frac{x}{2}\cdot\frac{y}{2}\cdot\left(1-\frac{x}{2}\right)^2\cdot\left(1-\frac{y}{2}\right)^2\int_{\arcsin(x/2)+\arcsin(y/2)}^{\pi}f(u)\,du\,dy\,dx\\= -\frac{121783}{23625}+\frac{121 \pi }{75}+\frac{3 \pi ^2}{160}\approx \frac{22}{223}$$

we get a probability which is slightly above $\frac{1}{12}$. This is due to the fact that once we fix the length of $AB$, the events $A$ lies on the outside of the $CD$-strip and $B$ lies on the outside of the $CD$-strip are not really independent, as we may easily realize when considering the cases in which $AB$ is pretty short.

On the other hand, we are getting closer. We need the spherical analogue of the relation between $\beta$ and $\ell, d,\alpha$ in the following configuration:

enter image description here

In the Euclidean case the area of the triangle is given by $\ell\frac{d}{2}\sin\alpha$ while the lenghts of the sides adjacent to $\beta$ are $\sqrt{\ell^2+\frac{1}{4}d^2\pm \ell d\cos\alpha}$, hence $\sin(\beta)\sqrt{\left(\ell^2+\frac{d^2}{4}\right)^2-\ell^2 d^2\cos^2\alpha}=\ell d\sin(\alpha)$ and $$ \sin \beta =\frac{\sin\alpha}{\sqrt{\left(\frac{\ell}{d}+\frac{d}{4\ell}\right)^2-\cos^2\alpha}}.$$

enter image description here

With a bit of work, through the spherical versions of the sine and cosine rules I got that

$$ \sin\beta = \frac{\sin\alpha\sin d\sin\ell}{\sqrt{1-\left(\cos\ell\cos\frac{d}{2}+\sin\ell\sin\frac{d}{2}\cos\alpha\right)^2}\sqrt{1-\left(\cos\ell\cos\frac{d}{2}-\sin\ell\sin\frac{d}{2}\cos\alpha\right)^2}}$$

which is enough to write down the wanted probability as an explicit (but quite terrifying) quintuple integral, with the variables being $r,r',\ell\geq r+r',\alpha,\alpha'$.

Jack D'Aurizio
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Not an answer, but some computational results for the $n$-d generalization. Suppose we sample $n+2$ points (independently and uniformly) from $S^n$. What is the probability $p_n$ that all triples of these points are the vertices of acute triangles? We may think of $p_n$ as the probability that a random simplex drawn from $S^n$ is acute.

I've estimated $p_n$ based on drawing $10^9$ simplices for $n=2$ and $n=3$, and $10^8$ simplices for $n=4$ to $n=10$:

  • $\hat{p}_2 = 0.083330838$
  • $\hat{p}_3 = 0.027695117$
  • $\hat{p}_4 = 0.01069892$
  • $\hat{p}_5 = 0.00522662$
  • $\hat{p}_6 = 0.00323191$
  • $\hat{p}_7 = 0.00244570$
  • $\hat{p}_8 = 0.00217638$
  • $\hat{p}_9 = 0.00224116$
  • $\hat{p}_{10} = 0.00253707$

The true value of $12p_2$ has a 95% chance of falling in the interval $(0.9997645,1.0001756)$, bolstering the conjecture that $p_2 = 1/12$. The values $p_1 = 1/4$ and $p_2 = 1/12$ are a promising start to a pattern, and $\hat{p}_3$ is near $1/36$... but not near enough: $\hat{p}_3 \approx 1/36.107$, which is about 16 standard deviations below $1/36$. We find that $P(p_3 \ge 1/36) = 2 \times 10^{-57}$. None of the other values of $\hat{p}_n$ suggest that $p_n$ is some simple rational number either. Alas. A pattern may have suggested a proof technique.

The computations show that acute simplices are rarest for $S^8 \subset \mathbf{R}^9$, where $\hat{p}_8 \approx 1/460$. The sequence $p_n$ approaches $1$ as $n \rightarrow \infty$ due to concentration of measure. In this limit, all random triangles (i.e., triangles with vertices chosen independently and uniformly from $S^n$) are asymptotically equilateral. I didn't explore this case much, but some lower-resolution computations yield

  • $\hat{p}_{15} = 0.01215$
  • $\hat{p}_{20} = 0.07506$
  • $\hat{p}_{25} = 0.2739$
  • $\hat{p}_{30} = 0.5709$
  • $\hat{p}_{50} = 0.9887$
Jim Ferry
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