Saturday 28 March 2009

Volumes of prisms

One definition of a prism is a transparent body with triangular ends through which light can pass. Other definitions don't specifiy the triangular bit, but for this blog let's take it that a prism has a shape like a ridge tent, triangular at its ends. How do we work out the volume of a prism? Well you take the principle set out a couple of blogs ago. In the 'how big is a litre blog' I looked at the volume of a tin can shape. It is the base times the height.

For a prism the base is the triangle and the height is the ridge (OK you might be thinking this is length, so use your imagination and put this tent on its end - hey presto it's the height). The area of the triangle is half the base x the height, then all you have to do is multiply by the ridge. Isn't maths easy? If you have missed any steps and you don't think maths is easy then please look back at previous blogs. It might even be worth reading them chronologically.

That sums it up.

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