Prisms

A prism is a polyhedron in which two faces are parallel and congruent polygons, called its bases and whose other faces are parallelograms, called its lateral faces.  The edges of the lateral faces are called lateral edges of the prism and are parallel and congruent.  A prism also has an altitude, which is the perpendicular distance between the planes of the bases:

 

Prisms are often classified by the shape of their bases.  Thus a triangular prism is a prism whose bases are triangles, and a hexagonal prism is a prism whose bases are hexagons. A right prism is a prism in which its lateral edges are perpendicular to its bases.  In this case the lateral faces are rectangles:

toc | return to top | previous page | next page