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TheoremProved

Prism Volume Theorem

Statement

For every prism, right or oblique, with base area BB and height hh (the perpendicular distance between the two bases), the volume is V=BhV = Bh.

Why is it true?

A stack of identical playing cards has the same volume whether the stack is straight or pushed into a slanted, leaning stack — only the pile's cross-section repeats, not its outline. A prism is exactly such a stack of infinitely thin copies of its base.

Proof sketch

First consider a right prism, whose lateral edges are perpendicular to the base. Slicing it with a plane parallel to the base at any height produces a cross-section congruent to the base itself, of area BB. Stacking these cross-sections from height 00 to hh gives volume ∫0hB dy=Bh\int_0^h B\,dy = Bh, which is exactly V=BhV = Bh for the right prism.

Now take any oblique prism with the same base area BB and the same height hh. Place it next to a right prism with that same base and height, sharing the plane of one base. A cross-section of the oblique prism at height yy is a translated copy of the base (translation does not change area), so it has area BB, exactly the same as the cross-section of the right prism at that height.

By Cavalieri's principle, since the two solids have equal cross-sectional area BB at every height y∈[0,h]y \in [0, h], they have equal volume. Since the right prism has volume V=BhV = Bh, so does the oblique prism, proving the formula for every prism.

Topics that use this theorem

Step-by-step proofs

No step-by-step proof yet for this theorem.

References

  1. Euclid; trans. T. L. Heath (1908). Euclid's Elements, Book XII (method of exhaustion; pyramid and prism volumes)
  2. Weisstein, Eric W. (2024). Platonic solid