We find the mass, of the tetrahedron by the triple integral
where is the solid tetrahedron described above. In this example, we choose to integrate with respect to first for the innermost integral. The top of the tetrahedron is given by the equation
solving for then yields
The bottom of the tetrahedron is the -plane, so the limits on in the iterated integral will be
To find the bounds on and we project the tetrahedron onto the -plane; this corresponds to setting in the equation The resulting relation between and is
The right image in
Figure 3.6.9 shows the projection of the tetrahedron onto the
-plane.
If we choose to integrate with respect to for the middle integral in the iterated integral, then the lower limit on is the -axis and the upper limit is the hypotenuse of the triangle. Note that the hypotenuse joins the points and and so has equation Thus, the bounds on are Finally, the values run from 0 to 6, so the iterated integral that gives the mass of the tetrahedron is
Evaluating the triple integral gives us