Closure of outward face area vectors

ID: closure-of-outward-face-area-vectors

For a closed polyhedron, let be a face area and its outward unit normal vector. The sum of the face area vectors is zero. To prove it, fix any constant vector and apply the divergence theorem to the constant vector field : its divergence vanishes, while its outward flux is . This is zero for every , so the sum vanishes. For a tetrahedron, the same identity follows directly by expanding the four oriented face cross products; multiplying every face vector by two leaves the identity intact.

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