Tag Archive

If you are a teacher then please also visit my new site: intermathematics.com for over 2000+ pdf pages of resources for teaching IB maths!

Finding the volume of a rugby ball (prolate spheroid)

With the rugby union World Cup currently underway I thought I’d try and work out the volume of a rugby ball using some calculus.  This method works similarly for American football and Australian rules football.   The approach is to consider the rugby ball as an ellipse rotated 360 degrees around the x axis to create a volume of revolution.  We can find the equation of an ellipse centered at (0,0) by simply looking at the x and y intercepts.  An ellipse with y-intercept (0,b) and x intercept (a,0) will have equation:

Therefore for our rugby ball with a horizontal “radius” (vertex) of 14.2cm and a vertical “radius” (co-vertex) of 8.67cm will have equation:

We can see that when we plot this ellipse we get an equation which very closely resembles our rugby ball shape:

Therefore we can now find the volume of revolution by using the following formula:

But we can simplify matters by starting the rotation at x = 0 to find half the volume, before doubling our answer.  Therefore:

Rearranging our equation of the ellipse formula we get:

Therefore we have the following integration:

Therefore our rugby ball has a volume of around 4.5 litres.  We can compare this with the volume of a football (soccer ball) – which has a radius of around 10.5cm, therefore a volume of around 4800 cubic centimeters.

We can find the general volume of any rugby ball (mathematically defined as a prolate spheroid) by the following generalization:

We can see that this is very closely related to the formula for the volume of a sphere, which makes sense as the prolate spheroid behaves like a sphere deformed across its axes. Our prolate spheroid has “radii” b, b and a – therefore r cubed in the sphere formula becomes b squared a.

Prolate spheroids in nature

The image above [wiki image NASA] is of the Crab Nebula – a distant Supernova remnant around 6500 light years away.  The shape of Crab Nebula is described as a prolate spheroid.

Essential Resources for IB Teachers

1) Intermathematics.com

If you are a teacher then please also visit my new site.  This has been designed specifically for teachers of mathematics at international schools.  The content now includes over 2000 pages of pdf content for the entire SL and HL Analysis syllabus and also the SL Applications syllabus.  Some of the content includes:

1. Original pdf worksheets (with full worked solutions) designed to cover all the syllabus topics.  These make great homework sheets or in class worksheets – and are each designed to last between 40 minutes and 1 hour.
2. Original Paper 3 investigations (with full worked solutions) to develop investigative techniques and support both the exploration and the Paper 3 examination.
3. Over 150 pages of Coursework Guides to introduce students to the essentials behind getting an excellent mark on their exploration coursework.
4. A large number of enrichment activities such as treasure hunts, quizzes, investigations, Desmos explorations, Python coding and more – to engage IB learners in the course.

There is also a lot more.  I think this could save teachers 200+ hours of preparation time in delivering an IB maths course – so it should be well worth exploring!

Essential Resources for both IB teachers and IB students

1) Exploration Guides and Paper 3 Resources

I’ve put together a 168 page Super Exploration Guide to talk students and teachers through all aspects of producing an excellent coursework submission.  Students always make the same mistakes when doing their coursework – get the inside track from an IB moderator!  I have also made Paper 3 packs for HL Analysis and also Applications students to help prepare for their Paper 3 exams.  The Exploration Guides can be downloaded here and the Paper 3 Questions can be downloaded here.