Prop. 19. If two planes which cut one another be each of them perpendicular to a third plane, their common section shall be perpendicular to the same plane.
§ 79. If three planes pass through a common point, and if they bound each other, a solid angle of three faces, or a trihedral angle, is formed, and similarly by more planes a solid angle of more faces, or a polyhedral angle. These have many properties which are quite analogous to those of triangles and polygons in a plane. Euclid states some, viz.:—
Prop. 20. If a solid angle be contained by three plane angles, any two of them are together greater than the third.
But the next—
Prop. 21. Every solid angle is contained by plane angles, which are together less than four right angles—has no analogous theorem in the plane.
We may mention, however, that the theorems about triangles contained in the propositions of Book I., which do not depend upon the theory of parallels (that is all up to Prop. 27), have their corresponding theorems about trihedral angles. The latter are formed, if for “side of a triangle” we write “plane angle” or “face” of trihedral angle, and for “angle of triangle” we substitute “angle between two faces” where the planes containing the solid angle are called its faces. We get, for instance, from I. 4, the theorem, If two trihedral angles have the angles of two faces in the one equal to the angles of two faces in the other, and have likewise the angles included by these faces equal, then the angles in the remaining faces are equal, and the angles between the other faces are equal each to each, viz. those which are opposite equal faces. The solid angles themselves are not necessarily equal, for they may be only symmetrical like the right hand and the left.
The connexion indicated between triangles and trihedral angles will also be recognized in
Prop. 22. If every two of three plane angles be greater than the third, and if the straight lines which contain them be all equal, a triangle may be made of the straight lines that join the extremities of those equal straight lines.
And Prop. 23 solves the problem, To construct a trihedral angle having the angles of its faces equal to three given plane angles, any two of them being greater than the third. It is, of course, analogous to the problem of constructing a triangle having its sides of given length.
Two other theorems of this kind are added by Simson in his edition of Euclid’s Elements.