Prism Volume Theorem
Statement
For every prism, right or oblique, with base area and height (the perpendicular distance between the two bases), the volume is .
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 . Stacking these cross-sections from height to gives volume , which is exactly for the right prism.
Now take any oblique prism with the same base area and the same height . 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 is a translated copy of the base (translation does not change area), so it has area , 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 at every height , they have equal volume. Since the right prism has volume , 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
- Euclid; trans. T. L. Heath (1908). Euclid's Elements, Book XII (method of exhaustion; pyramid and prism volumes)
- Weisstein, Eric W. (2024). Platonic solid