Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2003 ia Paper 3 5E a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Move the origin to the centroid and write the four vertex vectors as . Their sum is zero. The midpoints of the first opposite-edge pair have vectors and , so their distances from the centroid are equal. The same argument applies to the other two opposite-edge pairs.
Choose the three midpoint distances as , , . Expanding the dot products,Identifying these four norms with the vertex distances proves the tetrahedron centroid-to-midpoint sum of squares:The proof uses no orthogonality or regularity assumption on the tetrahedron.