 Maximum-volume cuboid in a hemisphere

For a closed hemisphere of radius $a>0$, take a rectangular parallelepiped with a face on the flat base, base half-widths $x,y>0$ and height $z>0$. Its curved-boundary constraint is $x^2+y^2+z^2=a^2$ and its volume is $4xyz$. A Lagrange multiplier gives $x=y=z=a/\sqrt{3}$, yielding the displayed maximum. The full edge lengths are $2a/\sqrt{3},2a/\sqrt{3},a/\sqrt{3}$.

This bound remains valid when arbitrary orientations are allowed. Write a cuboid's half-edge lengths as $u_1,u_2,u_3$, its center components in its orthonormal edge basis as $v_i$, and the vertical unit-vector components as $n_i$. Containment above the base plane requires $\sum n_i{v}_i\ge \sum |n_i|u_i$. Hence $|v_j|\ge u_j$ for at least one $j$: otherwise every contributing term would be strictly smaller than its required bound. Its farthest vertex has squared distanceContainment in the sphere bounds the right side by $a^2$. The arithmetic-geometric mean inequality then gives $2u_1{u}_2{u}_3\le a^3/(3\sqrt{3})$, so the full volume $8u_1{u}_2{u}_3$ cannot exceed the displayed value. The constructed cuboid attains it. With strict containment and no boundary contact, the same value is a supremum.